Is Mark Cuban right to claim crypto donors are ‘manipulating’ Donald Trump?

American businessman and billionaire Mark Cuban is a vocal critic of presidential aspirant Donald Trump, and these days, he doesn’t spare any opportunity to express his dislike. 

With the 2024 elections just around the corner, presidential candidates have intensified their campaign efforts, lobbying donors and pandering to various opinion groups. However, Donald Trump’s ‘charm’ doesn’t seem to sway Mark Cuban—at all. His interview with MSNBC, where he claimed Trump can be easily manipulated, is just the latest episode of their beef. 

It was not like that in the beginning. Mark Cuban was a Trump supporter as he believed him to be an underdog in the political scene. However, he says he has seen that Trump is unethical; his donors know this, and they believe they could manipulate him with donations. 

Trump was always anti-crypto and was instrumental to one of the most protracted regulatory clampdowns to hit crypto—the Ripple vs. SEC legal case. 

Well, that was the old Trump. He has rebranded as a pro-crypto presidential candidate. He also became the first candidate to openly declare for and accept crypto donations. Who knows how much one decision affected the other—a classic case of the hen and egg. 

This drastic change in stance and the inflow of crypto money into his campaign fund can be assumed to be because of crypto capitalists lobbying and exchanging donations for the promise of more leeway for crypto operations. 

There might be some credence to this assumption since the Republican vice presidential candidate, J.D. Vance has reportedly begun to draft a pro-crypto legislation.

According to a Citizen report, crypto corporations are the biggest donors to the 2024 elections, spending over $129 million. This highlights the growing interest of crypto entities in this election’s results, as the outcome could help shape the regulatory landscape of the crypto market.

Trump has seen major donations from big names crypto donors

Not only is anti-crypto Trump a thing of the past, he even has his own NFT collection. Reasonably, his exploits caught the attention of the crypto community and even got some big names to donate to his campaign. 

Trump has a steady flow of donations from different industries, but Mark Cuban’s accusations might have some merit. 

Elon Musk

Following the assassination attempt on Trump, Elon publicly declared his support for Donald Trump. He has already donated over $70 million to pro-Trump PACs. On the surface, it would seem Musk made a regular political decision. However, we need to ask the question, “What does he stand to gain?”

In a Youtube interview, Mark Cuban had this to say about the Musk – Trump relationship:

“If you’re the wealthiest person in the world and you have control, effective control, you’re the puppet master of the president, the most powerful person in the world. Oh my God, that’s about as intoxicating — that is the definition of power corrupts, but absolute power corrupts absolutely.”. 

From cuban’s words, it would seem that Elon seeks power.

Elon’s influence in the crypto market is undeniable. He is largely responsible for making the DOGE memecoin a top 10 digital asset through his vocal support and acceptance of the token as a payment method for Tesla EVs. 

It should be noted that Tesla held about $1.5 billion in crypto and sold off over $800 million during favorable market conditions. Cryptopolitan also reported that the company moved its BTC holdings to unknown wallets. Perhaps, in anticipation of the market boom a Trump win could bring. 

Kenneth Griffin

Much like Donald Trump, Kenneth Griffin, the billionaire founder of Citadel was also a crypto skeptic. He believed that it was created as an attack on the supremacy of the US dollar.

However, through his company, Citadel Securities, he has entered the crypto market. Citadel owns a 5.5% stake in Silver Capital Corp, which is reportedly worth about $25 million.  

Griffin has donated about $100 million to Trump’s campaign, and this could be due to an alignment of goals. They both hated crypto only to declare support after seeing it as a viable market for investments.

The Winklevoss twins

The Winklevoss twins are among the earliest adopters of BTC and founders of the Gemini exchange. The twins have continued to help shape and push to help legitimize BTC and cryptocurrency as viable economic forces. 

They are also staunch advocates of limited government interference in financial innovation, economic autonomy, and digital sovereignty. Trump is a candidate who gravitates toward deregulation, free market capitalism, and a hands-off regulatory environment for crypto.

“President Donald J. Trump is the pro-Bitcoin, pro-crypto, and pro-business choice,” Tyler Winklevoss wrote on X (formerly Twitter). 

As such, the twins’ support for Trump is fairly obvious; they would support a candidate they believe is best for their business. The twins’ support has amounted to $2 million for Trump’s re-election bid. 

They even facilitate crypto donations for pro-crypto candidates via their exchange.

Donald Trump has skin in the crypto game

A financial disclosure revealed that Trump owns over $1 million in cryptocurrency and has earned over $7 million in royalties from his NFT trading cards. Some people think it could present a conflict of interest: 

How can a president objectively interact with a space if he has such personal financial stakes?

While we’re talking about Donald, his son, Barron has been making some moves, too. He has a leadership role in the crypto company World Liberty Financial (WLFI) as a “defi visionary.” 

In another interesting twist, Steven Witkoff, a friend of Donald Trump who has donated about $2 million to his campaign, has two sons, Alex and Zach, who are co-founders of World Liberty Finance.

Crypto is no longer on the sidelines

With the 2024 elections approaching, the emergence of crypto’s influence on politics at the highest level could not be more apparent. 

Mark Cuban has a right to be concerned about the motivation of the crypto donations to Trump’s campaign. However, many of these candidates are only positioning themselves to benefit from the rhetorics that resonate with them best. 

For Trump, it is the crypto market. While questions about conflicts of interest are logical, pro-crypto voters don’t mind that their interests may be reflected in policies and regulations moving forward. 

That’s kind of the essence of campaign donations.