Mark Cuban Asks, ‘Why Aren’t All Employees Getting Shares?’ -- Calls For Companies To Give Workers Stock at the Same Rate as CEOs After $33 Trillion Wealth Boom
- Jeannine Mancini
- Oct 15
- 2 min read
Mark Cuban thinks the problem with billionaire wealth isn’t billionaires — it’s the system that lets them grow richer while workers get left behind.
The Shark Tank star and longtime investor recently chimed in on X after a post claimed billionaires’ wealth has surged by $33 trillion since 2015, citing data from Oxfam. Cuban didn’t deny the number. He just had a different explanation.
“You know why?” he wrote on October 12. “Because the stock market has gone straight up. You know who is funding the increase, particularly lately? Retail investors. 401(k)s.”
In other words, it’s not the ultra-wealthy funneling cash into the market — it’s everyone else with a retirement plan.
But Cuban wasn’t finished. He shifted the conversation toward what he sees as the real issue: companies rewarding the few at the top while ignoring everyone else.
“The better question is why are we not giving incentives to companies to require them to give shares in their companies to all employees, at the same percentage of cash earnings as the CEO?”
He followed up with a specific policy suggestion:
“What I would do is offer deductions for stock offered to employees making under $100K if they are given at the same percent of cash earnings as the CEO or any other executive. You need to increase the amount of appreciable assets that people own in order to reduce income inequality.”
He’s Literally Walked the Talk
Cuban’s stance on employee ownership isn’t just talk — he’s built it into his business philosophy for decades. When he sold Broadcast.com to Yahoo for $5.7 billion in 1999, nearly 300 of his 330 employees became millionaires overnight. In later interviews and social media posts, Cuban confirmed that he intentionally structured the deal to share the windfall, explaining that he wanted everyone who helped build the company to benefit from its success.
That wasn’t the first time he’d done it. Years earlier, when Cuban sold his computer consulting firm MicroSolutions to CompuServe, he said he distributed 20% of the sale proceeds among his 80 employees. He’s described those decisions not as charity, but as good business — a way to reward loyalty and foster trust in future ventures.
Even decades later, the pattern continued. When Cuban sold a majority stake in the Dallas Mavericks to the Adelson family in 2023, he reportedly handed out roughly $35 million in bonuses to staff, including long-time employees who had worked behind the scenes for years. Cuban called it “life-changing money,” echoing the same wealth-sharing mindset he’s now advocating publicly.
The Bigger Picture
His comments arrive as the CEO-to-worker pay ratio has ballooned from about 20-to-1 in the 1960s to more than 300-to-1 today, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
By focusing on equity over outrage,
— away from punishment and toward participation. If employees had the same ownership stake, he argues, the billionaire boom wouldn’t sting so much.
Cuban’s message is simple: don’t fight the system — own a piece of it.
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