Billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban, who emerged as a high-profile supporter of Vice President Kamala Harris during the 2024 presidential campaign and a vocal critic of Donald Trump, is now praising the president’s executive order aimed at curbing prescription drug costs.
In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Cuban described the measure as “a potential game-changer,” estimating that it could “save hundreds of billions” by curbing the power of pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), the often-opaque intermediaries in the pharmaceutical supply chain.
Why It Matters
The praise marks a sharp turn for Cuban, who spent much of the 2024 election cycle criticizing Trump and billionaire backer Elon Musk while campaigning for Harris.
However, the issue of high prescription costs has long been a personal crusade for Cuban, who launched his own company, Cost Plus Drugs, in 2022 to tackle inflated prices through direct-to-consumer transparency.
The online pharmacy, launched in 2022, sells more than 2,500 medications with transparent pricing and a fixed 15 percent markup.
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What To Know
Cuban’s support for Trump’s order centers on reforming how drug formularies are managed and increasing access to pricing data. He criticized the rebate-driven model used by PBMs, which he says inflates prices while squeezing out independent pharmacies.
“Gotta be honest. The @realDonaldTrump EO on healthcare and in particular, drug pricing could save hundreds of billions,” the Dallas Mavericks minority owner wrote in a long post on X, before outlining six specific reforms he believes would transform the pharmaceutical system.
“Put me in coach! I’m here to help,” Cuban wrote.
Cuban listed several reforms aimed at lowering drug prices and reining in the power of PBMs, including removing them from formulary decisions to avoid financial conflicts of interest. He also called for requiring them to share claims data with employers, states and drugmakers.
He pushed to end inflated pricing for so-called specialty drugs and to ensure independent pharmacies are fully reimbursed, arguing they’re often penalized by pricing plans that make generics more expensive.
Cuban also wants to eliminate confidentiality clauses that prevent employers from negotiating directly with drug manufacturers. Additionally, he called for banning PBMs from replacing cheaper medications with more expensive, self-branded alternatives.
He noted that drugmakers currently pay 5 percent to 10 percent of a drug’s retail price just to access essential data. Making that data freely available, he argued, could significantly reduce costs across the system.
What People Are Saying
Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, after signing legislation that prohibits PBM’s from owning or operating pharmacies, in a statement: “For far too long, drug middlemen called PBMs have taken advantage of lax regulations to abuse customers, inflate drug prices, and cut off access to critical medications. Not anymore.”
The White House, in a statement on Tuesday: “President Trump is delivering on his promise to once again put American patients first by building off of the historic efforts of his first term to lower prescription drug prices.”
What Happens Next
The executive order signed Tuesday directs the Department of Health and Human Services to take action to significantly lower drug prices for Americans. The directive aims to dismantle opaque pricing structures and steer the system toward “a more competitive, transparent, efficient, and resilient prescription drug value chain,” according to the White House fact sheet.
