Mark Cuban Proposes Tax Breaks for Companies Giving Equity to All Employees

Mark Cuban called for companies to grant equity to every employee and proposed using the tax code to reward those that do so. Speaking on the "What It Takes" podcast from Unmoderated News, released Thursday, Cuban said he wants every chief executive, founder and entrepreneur to follow his example of distributing equity across the entire workforce.

He argued that sharing stock allows workers to benefit directly when companies succeed and reduces income inequality.

"I would like to see it so that every single CEO/founder/entrepreneur does what I did, which was to give equity to every single employee," Cuban said. He added that the approach should apply proportionally: if a CEO making $1 million in cash receives $100,000 in stock, a janitor making $50,000 should receive the same percentage of their cash compensation in equity.

com.

When Yahoo acquired the company in 1999, about 300 employees became millionaires after receiving equity. He suggested the government could lower corporate tax rates for companies that distribute equity broadly and raise rates for those that do not. "You can give them incentives to say, 'Look, if you want that 21% tax rate, then you need to give every single employee the same percentage in stock warrants, options, whatever it may be, of their cash compensation that you give to the CEO,'" he said.

The proposal comes as executive compensation has outpaced worker pay. Oxfam and the International Trade Union Confederation reported that CEOs of the world's largest companies received an 11% real-terms pay rise in 2025, while average worker pay rose 0.5%.