Mark Cuban and Elon Musk offered a study in contrasts as they went before swing state voters Thursday to make the case for their chosen candidates.
Both billionaires walked on stage with their phones prominently in hand but the similarities ended there.
Musk, the Tesla (TSLA) and SpaceX CEO and owner of social media platform X, had his phone present to broadcast a concurrent live X space and then proceeded to riff on a wide array of topics — from his case for voting early for Donald Trump to his thoughts on Israel to a recent SpaceX rocket capture.
Cuban, the entrepreneur and “Shark Tank” star, used his phone instead to read prepared remarks where he made a much more careful and focused economic case for Vice President Kamala Harris.
The differences were emblematic of differing approaches to the final weeks seen across the two campaigns overall as well as the very different roles these two billionaires are set to play in those final pushes.
And there was also a notable contrast in tone.
“Y’all here to have a little fun?” Cuban asked as he took the stage in La Crosse, Wisc., before it was Harris’s turn to speak. Cuban then slammed Trump’s economic plans as “basically just gibberish.”
Musk put things in much more stark terms.
“I’m politically active now because I think the future of America and the future of civilization is at stake,” he said during his remarks in Folsom, Pa., just outside of Philadelphia.
A study in contrasts
A Yahoo Finance analysis of the speeches and their transcripts put the differences in even sharper contrast.
Cuban, after a short introduction where he discussed his television appearances and partial ownership of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, immediately turned to economic policy and largely stayed there.
He called the election a “battle for entrepreneurs” and focused on Harris’s plan for small businesses as well as Trump’s tariffs ideas for almost the entirety of the 12-minute speech.
Read more: What the 2024 campaign means for your wallet: The Yahoo Finance guide to the presidential election
In fact, outside of broader introductory and closing comments (and a brief foray into Trump’s border wall) Cuban spent over 85% of his time on economic topics, according to the analysis.
Musk, by contrast, was far more wide-ranging and only touched on purely economics topics more fleetingly.
The event was more notable for moments like when Musk pulled a young member of the audience up on stage for a selfie, not to mention his repeating of debunked claims about Dominion voting systems and the 2020 vote. (The electronic voting company was paid $787 million by Fox News in 2023 after the channel made similar claims that were called defamatory).
Musk’s event, which was a town hall format, delved into more topics in part because of the audience questions.
But even Musk’s 15-minute opening commentary was largely focused on issues like crime and immigration, though the world’s richest man touched on the national debt briefly.
He said of the Biden/Harris administration “if we get four more years of this, we’re going to be fully Mad Max” — a reference to the post-apocalyptic “Mad Max” movie franchise.
He focused on US immigration and crime for about 40% of that opening speech, an analysis of the transcript found, with less than 10% devoted to inflation and the national debt.
The remainder of Musk’s opening remarks before he opened the floor to questions was largely focused on the importance of Pennsylvania, the stakes of the election, and free speech issues.
Differences that reflect the top of the ticket
The diametrically opposed approaches are also a reflection of the two candidates at the top of the ticket.
Harris has become known, to the fault of some, as a candidate who stays resolutely on message.
“That would be called discipline,” Harris said in a recent interview with Charlamagne tha God when he brought up critics who called her overly scripted.
“There are certain things that must be repeated to ensure that I have everyone know what I stand for and the issues I think are at stake,” she added.
Trump goes in the opposite direction.
He decries TelePrompters at nearly every campaign event and often ignores those set up in front of him in favor of asides that get him off message and, the New York Times reported Friday, worry even some of his allies.
The differing approaches from Musk and Cuban are also a reflection of the differing roles that they are set to play in the closing weeks of the campaign.
Musk donated $75 million to his Trump-supporting super PAC last quarter and has begun to shoulder a significant responsibility for Trump’s get-out-the-vote operation in Pennsylvania and other key swing states.
The Harris campaign has raised more than $1 billion apparently without Cuban. He appears tasked instead with making a case to specific audiences — specifically younger voters and men — that she needs to bring to her side in the closing weeks.
Also on Thursday, Cuban and Harris traveled to the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee for a private stop at a school where, according to the Harris campaign, there is a “Shark Tank”-style competition with winning student pitches getting funding through the university.
At the end of the day, perhaps the only other similarity between these two campaign surrogates — beyond their billionaire status and their attachment to their phones — is that we’ll be hearing a lot more from them.
Both have more events on the docket this weekend, with Musk scheduled to barnstorm Pennsylvania and with Cuban traveling to both Arizona and Michigan.
Ben Werschkul is Washington correspondent for Yahoo Finance.
Every Friday, Yahoo Finance’s Rachelle Akuffo, Rick Newman, and Ben Werschkul bring you a unique look at how U.S. policy and government affects your bottom line on Capitol Gains. Watch or listen to Capitol Gains on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.
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