Utah's Richest Man Criticizes Vail Resorts on Podcast: "They Don't Know What To Do"
Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince has been criticizing Vail Resorts for years, and took an opportunity to further bash the ski resort conglomerate and purveyor of the Epic Pass on a radio show based in Park City, Utah.
Prince is known as “Utah’s Richest Man,” with a net worth north of $9 billion. He lives in Park City and frequents Park City Mountain Resort (PCMR). PCMR is owned and operated by Vail Resorts, something that Prince wants to change.
Prince has openly lobbied on X (formerly Twitter) to own Park City. He even went so far as to criticize Vail Resorts CEO Rob Katz’s salary when it was made public last Fall.
More recently, Prince went on KCPW’s Mountain Money podcast and continued to criticize Vail Resorts and Katz. “[Vail Resorts] is an absolute defense mode,” Prince told the show’s hosts. “They don’t know what to do. They don’t know how to get out of the mess that they have.”
Tap or click below to watch the 51-second clip. Keep reading for more.
Prince, who keeps an active, borderline trolling presence on X, took another shot at Katz and Vail Resorts after the segment aired.
“Turns out I can cause trouble for Vail without even Tweeting! #SorryRobCants #NotReallySorry,” the state’s richest man wrote at 8:09 p.m. MST on Monday, August 31, 2026. Prince, who runs one of the world’s largest and most successful tech companies, is the first person to Tweet the #SorryRobCants hashtag.
Turns out I can cause trouble for Vail without even Tweeting! #SorryRobCants #NotReallySorry
— Matthew Prince 🌥 (@eastdakota) September 1, 2026
A quick search on Prince’s X feed shows that this week’s comments are nothing out of the ordinary. Prince has publicly bashed Vail Resort’s stock performance, the hiring of an MGM executive to its board of directors, and CEO Rob Katz’s leadership.
In one, somewhat bizarre thread, Prince revealed that Vail Resorts was hosting an investor relations meeting in a building he co-owns back in March of 2026. He attempted to get an invite based on his ownership status, but ultimately shared a screenshot from a Vail Resorts representative confirming that he was not welcome at the meeting.
If Vail Resorts makes a move, Matthew Prince isn’t far behind with a Tweet, radio appearance, or otherwise to share his disapproval.
Photo: Ian Greenwood
Katz hasn’t addressed Prince’s criticisms directly, but he did address Vail Resort’s business model in a recent episode of the Epic By Nature podcast.
Referencing Vail Resorts’ large portfolio of resorts, Katz explained why the company isn’t interested in changing its model anytime soon. “That network is what has enabled our success over the past nearly 20 years,” he said in the podcast. “It’s what made the Epic Pass possible that reshaped the global ski industry, but more importantly, it’s what will allow us to innovate across our resorts.”
“We just don’t see how it makes any sense for us whatsoever to sell our resorts,” Katz said later.
Park City Mountain Resort is part of Vail Resorts’ “destination group” alongside mega-resorts such as Whistler Blackcomb, Breckenridge, and Crans-Montana.
Selling it, especially to Prince, doesn’t seem in the cards. Not anytime soon, at least.
Leave a Reply