malone reportedly shuns the limelight and glamorous lifestyle and takes his family vacations alongside long time friend gary biskup, in a recreational vehicle. however, in business dealings he has been dubbed "darth vader", a nickname allegedly given to him by al gore when malone was the head of tci, where he demanded equity positions in cable programming services in return for carriage, and attempted to defeat the must-carry rules which protected broadcasters, a battle which the cable industry eventually lost in 1997 in the u.s. supreme court. in a news article published in "the denver post" newspaper in 2017, it was disclosed that malone received the "darth vader" title because al gore's grandmother lived in territory where tci provided service. she did not understand why cable bills went up when the company was delivering more content.