Did billionaire Mark Cuban move a company from Texas to California as of January 6, 2025? No, that's not true: A post that reported as much included a photo of a building with the logo "Cost Plus Drug Company," likely a reference to a Texas-based company owned by Cuban named "Cost Plus Drugs." As of this writing, that company had not moved to California. This supposed move was reported on a website without supporting evidence, and there is no record of such an announcement.
The claim appeared in a post on Threads (archived here) published on January 2, 2025. The caption read:
Mark Cuban moves company from Texas to California: "Can't operate in red states because of those who tried to block and...see more
This is what the post looked like at the time of writing:
(Source: Threads screenshot taken on Mon Jan 6 14:37:15 2025 UTC)
The Threads account that posted this claim has a bio that read: "Follow me..." A linked Instagram account only had images of cars and no followers (archived here), as shown below:
(Source: Instagram screenshot taken on Mon Jan 6 18:44:57 2025 UTC)
The Threads post included photos of Cuban and a building with the words, "MARK CUBAN COST PLUS DRUG COMPANY" on the outside, a likely reference to "Cost Plus Drugs." This is a pharmaceutical company owned by Cuban that was headquartered in Dallas, Texas at the time of this writing. This information was found under the site's "Our Mission" tab. Evidence of them being based in Texas is below (highlighting by Lead Stories):
(Source: Costplusdrugs.com screenshot taken on Mon Jan 6 19:04:38 2025 UTC)
A link in the Threads post caption led to a website, Viral USA (archived here), that included an article with a headline identical to the Threads post caption reading, "Mark Cuban moves company from Texas to California: "Can't operate in red states because of those who tried to block and...see more" (archived here). The website has no contact information or organizational tabs, and the only writer of the articles on the site is named "viralusa_den_107_2222."
Neither the article nor the Threads post provided any evidence to support this claim.
Searching "Cost Plus Drugs AND press release AND moving from Texas to California" on Google News yielded no evidence that the company released a statement about this claim (archived here). Lead Stories only found articles about Cost Plus Drugs and Cuban.
Lead Stories contacted Cost Plus Drugs for comment and will update this article accordingly.
The article claims that the reason for the move was Cuban's "inability to operate effectively in 'red states.'"According to the article, Cuban made a "viral" statement, which included the lines, "I can't operate in red-states anymore. The political climate and policies being enforced in these states make it increasingly difficult to run a business that values inclusivity and fairness."
There is no record of Cuban having made this statement.
Lead Stories searched "Mark Cuban AND 'I can't operate in red-states anymore. The political climate and policies being enforced in these states make it increasingly difficult to run a business that values inclusivity and fairness'" on Google News and did not find evidence of the supposed statement made by Cuban (archived here).
A Google search for the quote in the alleged Cuban statement also did not result in legitimate evidence for the statement (archived here).
Grammarly, an online grammar and plagiarism platform, has an AI-detection tool. Grammarly determined that "42% of the text appear[ed] to be AI-generated," as shown below:
(Source: Grammarly screenshot taken on Mon Jan 6 19:40:50 2025 UTC)
Lead Stories also searched "Mark Cuban moved his business from Texas to California" (archived here) on Google News, and the results yielded no articles supporting this claim. Most of the results were articles about various businesses or individuals moving from Texas to California or vice versa.
Neither Cuba's Facebook, X, nor Instagram accounts showed evidence of this supposed statement (archived here, here and here, respectively).
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More Lead Stories fact checks of claims surrounding Mark Cuban are here.
