Business investor and television personality Mark Cuban has high praise for Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D), who was announced Monday as Vice President Harris’s running mate.
The entrepreneur and reality TV panelist complimented Walz in a social media post Tuesday for his relatability as Silicon Valley bigwigs draw lines in the sand over the November election.
“People are tired of the ideologues and hate from both parties. They want to vote for normal people they can relate to. Walz can sit at the kitchen table and make you feel like you have [known] him forever,” he wrote online Tuesday morning.
Cuban downplayed Walz’s lack of celebrity, drawing comparisons to Harris as her star rose in recent weeks within the Democratic party.
“On the [Tim Walz] choice, I think people who don’t like it are missing the lesson of the switch to Harris. She went from worst to first as people got to know her. It’s not a reach to think the same thing will happen with Walz,” he said.
Other big names in tech have recently gotten behind the Harris ticket.
LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and more than 100 venture capitalists backed Vice President Harris in late July as reports swirled that former President Trump was making progress wooing Silicon Valley investors.
Trump has secured the loyalties of several major figures and former Democratic donors in the tech world, including Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, venture capitalist Shaun Maguire and tech adviser Jacob Helberg.
Regulations around cryptocurrency are an important issue for Silicon Valley as the Biden administration has taken a skeptical view of digital assets.
Cuban said Tuesday that personal relatability has become an important skill, an observation reflecting the increasingly polarized political discourse in the U.S.
“That’s an incredible skill these days,” he wrote.