Billionaire investor Mark Cuban suggested in a series of weekend tweets that the proposed wealth tax from 2020 presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., "diverts attention from reality" and is designed to hide her own wealth from the public.
Warren's wealth tax, exemplified by the "two cents" chant that dominates her rallies, calls for a 2% tax on every dollar a household has above $50 million, which would increase to a 6% tax for households with a net worth of more than $1 billion. That money would be used to pay for a variety of her policy proposals, including her "Medicare for All" plan.
Cuban, who owns the Dallas Mavericks of the NBA, highlighted Warren's income and net worth, which at $12 million puts her squarely among the top 1% in America.
Warren's net worth is actually in fourth place in the Democratic field, behind billionaire Tom Steyer, former Maryland Rep. John Delaney and Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet.
While Cuban declared Warren the smartest of the 2020 candidates, he also suggested that Warren is "intellectually misleading the public" on the prospects of funding her Medicare for All policy, which Warren says would cost $20.5 trillion over 10 years but some policy experts have pegged at $32 trillion over the same time frame.
Warren's campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Almost every Democratic challenger in the 2020 presidential race is a millionaire, with only Julian Castro, Tulsi Gabbard, and Pete Buttigieg with net worths below $1 million. Excluding Steyer and President Donald Trump's net worth, Warren's net worth is just below the average of $12.9 million, according to Forbes.
Cuban is just one of America's wealthiest citizens finding fault with Warren's platform of taxing the rich.
Billionaire investor Leon Cooperman, who in recent weeks has sparred with Warren over her tax policies, said on CNBC that her platform was "idiocy."
"I don't need Elizabeth Warren telling me that I'm a deadbeat and that billionaires are deadbeats. The vilification of billionaires makes no sense to me," Cooperman told CNBC.
Warren's wealth tax is also raising monumental concern for Democratic donors, who have threatened to back Trump if the Democratic Party were to nominate her for the general election.
