Cuban says he receives messages every week from older people asking whether his diabetes cure actually works, or telling him they already paid $294 for it.
The problem, Cuban says, is that he never endorsed that product.
Speaking on the Pivot podcast with Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway, Cuban described Facebook ads using AI-generated versions of his face and voice to promote a diabetes treatment he says he has never endorsed. The original episode was not independently verified in available sources, and those claims rest on secondary reporting from FinanceBuzz and the International Business Times.
“Every single week I get emails from little old men and ladies saying, ‘Will my cure for diabetes work?’ or ‘I just ordered your cure for diabetes for $294.’” Mark Cuban, investor and Cost Plus Drugs co-founder, as reported by the International Business Times.
Some ads reportedly included fine-print disclaimers stating the person shown was AI-generated and the clip was for entertainment. Cuban’s position, as summarized in those reports, is that a disclaimer buried below a convincing false endorsement does not undo the damage it already caused.
Meta’s Numbers Tell a Harder Story
Reuters’ reporting on disputed internal documents suggests the platform’s own staff has grappled with the scope of fraudulent advertising.
Reuters reported this November that internal Meta builds documents projected roughly $16 billion, approximately 10% of the company’s 2024 revenue, from ads involving scams and prohibited goods. That figure is an internal estimate reported by Reuters, not a confirmed accounting figure, and Meta disputes it.
A separate internal estimate, also reported by Reuters, described Meta’s platforms displaying approximately 15 billion “higher-risk” scam ads per day in December 2024. Internal safety staff reportedly estimated that Meta played a role in roughly one-third of scams that successfully affected U.S. victims.
Meta spokesperson Andy Stone pushed back, saying the documents presented “a selective view that distorts Meta’s approach to fraud and scams.” He called the 10% estimate “rough and overly-inclusive” and said scam-ad complaints had fallen 58% over the preceding 18 months.
Meta also claims it removed more than 134 million scam ads in 2025. That figure comes from the company itself, not independent verification.
The People Actually Losing Money
FBI data makes clear that older adults bear a disproportionate share of the financial harm from online fraud.
FBI data shows people over 60 reported more than $7.7 billion in losses in 2025, a figure the agency described as 37% higher than in 2024. AI-related complaints across all age groups produced nearly $893 million in reported losses that year.
These figures likely undercount the true scale. Many victims never recognize that AI was involved, and others never report the fraud at all.
Disclosure Is Not the Same as Protection
The core accountability question is not whether Meta removes scam ads eventually, but how many people are defrauded before removal happens.
Internal documents reportedly described a 95% probability threshold before automated systems would classify an advertiser as a scammer eligible for banning. That is a high bar, and it means harmful ads can remain active while real people are paying for products they never should have seen advertised.
A disclaimer stating a video is AI-generated provides a form of disclosure. It does not protect someone who saw a convincing clip of a trusted face and ordered a $294 diabetes treatment before reaching the fine print.
What Meta’s platforms need is earlier detection, faster removal, and enforcement mechanisms that do not depend on a celebrity going on a podcast to trigger action. The gap between what the platform says it does and what people actually experience is measured in billions of dollars in reported losses, and in messages from people who trusted a face they recognized.
