28-year-old Twitch streamer Imane “Pokimane” Anys is one of the most famous gamers in the world. In July, she attended a Chartiy event where a gaming date with her was auctioned off. One of the highest bidders, with a bid of $200,000 (around €185,000), was reportedly multi-billionaire Mark Cuban. Now the streamer confronted the famous man with his alleged bid.
How do you know Mark Cuban? The investor Mark Cuban became a millionaire early on, at the age of 32, by founding and selling a software company and stock market speculation.
His big payday came in 1999, when he was in his early 40s and sold a company he had founded to Yahoo for $5.7 billion – a deal that Yahoo would quickly regret. But the deal gave Cuban a reputation as a clever financial genius.
Sports fans know Cuban primarily as the owner of the Dallas Mavericks basketball team, where the most successful German in the NBA, Dirk Nowitzki, spent his career.
But most people will know Cuban from his role in the American “Lion’s Den”, Shark Tank, where he has been one of the influential figures since 2011. Young founders who are looking for an injection of cash present their new ideas and companies to him, the “financial shark”. Cuban and his colleagues ask questions, examine the ideas and check for weak points. Ultimately, they decided whether they wanted to invest in the idea or forego the deal.
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Did Mark Cuban really offer €185,000 to play with Pokimane for an hour?
Pokimane confronted this: In July 2024, Pokimane was part of a charity auction. You could bid on a gaming date with her: the highest bidder could play for an hour with the “Queen of Twitch”. Back then, the bids were initially overwhelming, partly because pranksters were offering crazy sums under false names: there were bids over $500,000.
Ultimately, an offer of $30,700 won.
One of the alleged mega-donors had offered $200,000 under the name Mark Cuban.
Pokimane wanted to know from Cuban in a discussion whether the bid was really his. He had just announced that he had often bid at auctions, and Pokimane saw her chance:
Have you ever (chuckles) offered money to play video games with someone? Maybe with me? My guess is no, but someone – I did a charity auction – someone somehow bid $200,000 under your name. It was totally crazy!
Cuban responds smoothly: “No, it wasn’t me. I would have paid any money in the world. So you know it wasn’t me because the bid was way too low.”
Pokimane melted in her chair, the other talk guests applauded or otherwise made it clear that they liked the answer.
What are the comments?? Cuban’s statement is seen on Twitter as a “weird flex”, a strange show off.
Some men also seem to find it a bit unfair that a billionaire has such an easy time getting Pokimane to melt away. Most women, it is said with offense, would react this way to a billionaire.
Of course, the “Pokimane Tier 3 Sub” meme is used again. Pokimane was the leading streamer on Twitch for a long time, but it was assumed that she was only so successful because she took advantage of lonely men: The biggest streamer on Twitch is said to be exploiting lonely men for money