Mark Cuban says the only time he met Bill Gates he made a joke that made Gates so 'pissed' they never spoke again

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Mark Cuban says the only time he met Bill Gates he made a joke that made Gates so 'pissed' they never spoke again
Owner of NBA's Dallas Mavericks Mark CubanMark Halmas/Icon SMI/Corbis/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
  • Bill Gates and Mark Cuban are not on speaking terms, Cuban said in a podcast interview.
  • Cuban says he once told a joke at a conference that got Gates "so pissed" that they never spoke again.
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Bill Gates and Mark Cuban are seemingly not on the friendliest terms.

Mark Cuban joined the "Full Send" podcast and discussed his relationship with the billionaire Microsoft co-founder, who Cuban said became "the king of tech," after Microsoft went public in 1986.

Cuban and Gates have only met once, Cuban said, and the interaction left Gates "so pissed" that they have never spoken again.

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Cuban said the interaction occurred at a conference where the two were invited to speak.

Bill Gates was scheduled to speak first, and Cuban said he told the conference organizers, "'the only reason I'm doing this is because Bill Gates is talking right before me,' and they were like 'okay, whatever,'" Cuban told the hosts of "Full Send."

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"So I get on there, and I say, 'you know, I'm excited to say I've sold my company, and finally, after all these years, Bill Gates is my opening act," Cuban said.

The joke apparently did not go over well with Gates.

"Oh, he got so pissed, and I've never talked to him since... not to this day," Cuban said.

Cuban said that the interaction happened right after Cuban sold his internet radio company, Broadcast.com to Yahoo in 1999 for $5.7 billion in stock.

Bill Gates did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

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