The 23-year-old scored a 92 on his first run through the halfpipe, which was clogged by wet, soggy rain and snow all night.
The conditions were less than ideal, but Wise cut through the heavy snow and easily outclassed the field. Mike Riddle of Canada took silver with a 90.6 and Kevin Rolland of France won bronze.
Wise came into the Sochi Olympics with three straight Winter X Games titles to his credit. His gold boosted Team USA to a total of 20 medals, which tied U.S. with the Netherlands for the top spot in the medals race. Russia is close behind with 19, and Norway has 18.
See which countries rank with the Olympic medal tracker on ESPN.com
Overnight, Alex Deibold took bronze for Team USA in men's snowboard cross, behind Russia's Nikolay Olyunin with silver and Pierre Vaultier who took the gold for France.
Behind them all, the favorites were washed away by bad luck, bad decisions. The rain at Rosa Khutor Extreme Park deteriorated the course into a slushy, soggy snowball. This made happy landings hard to come by.
The event was pushed back from Monday to Tuesday due to heavy fog. Conditions weren't much better 24 hours later as the drizzle slowed the 750-meter track, making passing difficult and put the ability to get out of the gates quickly at a premium.
Check out photos of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics competitions
A look at Tuesday's events:
Snowboard: France's Pierre Vaultier took gold, Russia's Nikolay Olyunin took silver and USA's Alex Deibold too bronze.
Alpine skiing: In women's giant slalom run, Slovenia's Tina Maze took gold, Austria's Anna Fenninger took silver and Germany's Viktoria Rebensburg took bronze.
Biathlon: In men's 15 km mass start, Norway's Emil Hegle Svendsen took gold, France's Martin Fourcade took silver and Czech Republic's Ondrej Moravec took bronze.
Nordic combined: Norway's Joergen Graabak and Magnus Hovdal Moan took gold and silver, respectively, and Germany's Fabian Riessle took bronze.
Short track: In ladies' 3000 m relay finals, Korea took gold, Canada took silver and Italy took bronze.
Speed skating: The Netherlands swept the podium for this event. Jorrit Bergsma took gold, Sven Kramer took silver and Bob De Jong took bronze.
Freestyle skiing: USA's David Wise took gold, Canada's Mike Riddle took silver and France's Kevin Rolland took bronze.
Check out the competition schedule for the Sochi Olympics on ESPN.com
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
