Mark Cuban is calling for the Securities and Exchange Commission to get rid of Chairman Gary Gensler.
The entrepreneur, who also owns a minority stake in the Dallas Mavericks, reportedly hosted a meeting in Washington, D.C., with a senior advisor to President Joe Biden and cryptocurrency leaders to discuss regulations and the SEC’s insistence that crypto exchanges register with the regulatory body as a trading platform.
“You all have permission to quote me saying that Biden should fire Gary Gensler,” Cuban said, according to Fox Business on Wednesday.
Cuban confirmed that quote to Fortune Friday, adding “He is the problem.”
The SEC didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse (D-Colorado), Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-New York) and SkyBridge Capital chief Anthony Scaramucci were also in attendance.
“I don’t believe Mr. Gensler has protected any investors in the crypto space or elsewhere for that matter,” Cuban told the Dallas Morning News on Thursday. “His approach at the SEC is to litigate to regulate. Which means it is impossible for crypto companies to have bright line rules to follow. This is evidenced by the fact that there are currently zero companies that have issued tokens for crypto apps. Not a single one. And that’s not for the lack of trying.”
It’s not the first time Cuban, a long-time crypto backer and ardent Biden supporter, has gone after Gensler. Last month, he wrote on X “I have said many times that Biden has to choose between Gensler or crypto voters or it could cost him the Whitehouse [sic].”
In May, on the same platform, he wrote “[Gensler] has made it impossible for good companies to do the right thing.”
Cuban is a crypto owner, with Bitcoin, Ethereum and more in his portfolio, and the Mavs began accepting Dogecoin in 2021.