Mark Cuban Reveals Tense Exchange with SEC Chair Gary Gensler

Billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban discussed his recent face-to-face meeting with the head of the SEC, Gary Gensler.

He describes a tense meeting that underlined the deep divide separating crypto advocates from the regulators. Cuban outlined his confrontation with Gensler in the green room at CNBC, where he directly hit out at the SEC's means of policing crypto.

"I told him this: You're screwing the whole thing up, you're pushing industries overseas," Cuban recalled. The Shark Tank star seemed in disbelief that Gensler didn't seem able to understand why the SEC's "regulation by enforcement" approach has been subject to so much ire in the crypto world.

Instead, Cuban suggested Gensler sees himself as some sort of crusading public servant, likening him to Senator Elizabeth Warren's notoriously anti-crypto view.

"I think he's got some of that Elizabeth Warren in him," Cuban said, referring to the Massachusetts senator's relentless framing of cryptocurrency as a means for criminals and dodgers to launder money. That stance has led both Warren and Gensler to be viewed as "crypto villains" by the industry's proponents.

But the bigger surprise came when Cuban let it slip that his recent public overtures about possibly serving as SEC chair in a Harris administration were actually an act of rhetorical trolling rather than a serious expression of interest.

He confessed, "I do not want to be the chairman of the SEC, [but] I wanted the conversation to happen to send a message to Gary Gensler that he's doing it all wrong."

Cuban emphasized that he remains committed to his crypto-friendly lobbying, and he is pursuing a follow-up meeting with Gensler to continue their discussion.