The biggest names in AI are spending hundreds of billions of dollars building data centers, chips, and models. Someone who has been watching the technology industry closely for 30 years just pointed out where some of that money might actually be coming from.
Mark Cuban, billionaire investor and former “Shark Tank” judge, published a series of posts on X (the former Twitter) on Sept. 15, arguing that Meta and Google may be funding their AI ambitions with advertising revenue earned from content that makes people distrust or oppose AI.
His argument is that social media algorithms reward anti-AI content with more reach. More reach means more engagement. More engagement means more ad dollars. And those ad dollars help pay for the AI buildout those same companies are racing to complete.
What Mark Cuban said on X about Meta and Google
“I think it’s going to be interesting to watch the irony of the social media algos amplifying the anti-AI sentiment far beyond any positive AI sentiment,” Cuban wrote on X.
He said Meta and Google could end up “trying to make enough money from pushing people to hate AI, to subsidize their AI.” His point is that content provoking fear or anger tends to generate more engagement than calm or optimistic posts. More engagement means more advertising impressions. More impressions mean more revenue.
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A user responding to Cuban noted that algorithms do not need to be explicitly anti-AI. They may simply learn that negative reactions to AI keep users on the platform longer. Cuban replied: “I look at those as being the same.”
The ad revenue numbers behind Cuban’s argument are significant. Meta is projected to generate $243.5 billion in global digital advertising revenue in 2026, according to The Next Web.
That would put Meta ahead of Google in global digital advertising for the first time ever. That is the revenue engine Cuban says could be cross-subsidizing the AI buildout.
Why Meta, Google algorithms create a real conflict for both companies
Meta and Google are among the largest corporate investors in AI. Meta is building AI models, data centers, and AI-powered products designed to keep users engaged across Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
Google is integrating AI into search, cloud services, and consumer products through its Gemini model family.
Both companies also operate advertising businesses that run on user attention. The same recommendation systems that decide what content users see can also reward posts that criticize AI, because criticism generates strong reactions and strong reactions drive engagement.
Cuban has been sounding this alarm for a while. In February 2026, TheStreet reported on his concerns that AI could be used to push users toward choices they would not normally make.
The February warning was about what AI does to users. His Sept. 15 argument is about something different: what the platforms do with the money they make from user outrage. That is a harder circle to break.
The tension Cuban is pointing to now is more specific. It is not just that algorithms can spread misinformation. It is that the same platforms investing aggressively in AI have a direct financial incentive to keep users generating high-engagement reactions to anything AI-related, including opposition.
What Cuban said about the bigger social-media risk
Cuban expanded his argument in a follow-up post. He said he sees “a far greater risk from what humans do in response to what they see on social media than what agent swarms will do,” Benzinga noted.
AI can write a post. AI can generate a video. But the algorithm decides who sees it.
That is the part Cuban is focused on. A piece of content that gets people angry travels further than one that makes them feel calm. The platform does not need to be anti-AI on purpose. It just needs to reward engagement. And fear and anger drive more engagement than reassurance does.
Cuban also pointed out that frontier AI companies like OpenAI and Anthropic have powerful models. But they do not own the platforms that decide what goes viral.
He said that balance could shift if AI agents eventually gain meaningful control over social media algorithms. Until then, he said, human reaction to what people see online is the variable that worries him most.
Why this matters as the AI backlash grows
Opposition to AI infrastructure has been building in communities across the United States. Residents near proposed data-center sites have raised concerns about electricity and water consumption, noise, pressure on local power grids, and the concentration of economic gains among large technology companies.
A May 2026 Gallup survey found that 71% of Americans opposed AI data centers being built near their communities. That level of public opposition is significant for companies planning multi-billion-dollar infrastructure investments that require local permits and community support.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei recently published an essay urging the industry to slow down frontier AI development.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman agreed with him publicly, according to CNBC. Two CEOs from competing companies saying the same thing in the same week is not nothing.
Neither addressed Cuban’s argument directly. But the growing acknowledgment that public trust matters is exactly what Cuban is talking about when he warns that the platforms distributing the AI debate could be shaping it.
Cuban’s argument adds a layer that neither Amodei nor Altman has addressed directly.
The platforms distributing the debate about AI are also the ones financing their own AI development. Whether that creates a structural bias in how the conversation spreads is the question he is putting to the market.
Related: Mark Zuckerberg and Nvidia CEO weigh in on Anthropic AI proposal