Zohran Mamdani Means Business
For a socialist who once opined that New York would be better off without billionaires, Zohran Mamdani — the mayor of a city with more billionaires than any other city on the globe — sure doesn’t mind basking in the investment boom that is currently sweeping through Gotham.
“I’m just coming from the beginning of the construction process for the new American Express headquarters in lower Manhattan,” Mamdani told me during a sit-down at Gracie Mansion. “What we’re seeing is multibillion-dollar investments in our city and a recommitment to the very neighborhoods that not that long ago we were told would never rise again. It is truly an incredible day for our city and all the announcements we’ve heard about companies committed to the city’s future.”
In a speech at the ground breaking, Mamdani estimated the $6 billion Amex project will ultimately support 21,250 jobs and contribute more than $11 billion to the local economy, including $250 million in tax revenue. A few days earlier, Anthropic, a San Francisco–based tech behemoth, announced plans to double its New York workforce to 1,000 employees and lease a 16-story building.
Those investments come on top of JPMorgan Chase cutting the ribbon on a $4 billion headquarters last year; Bank of America signing a 20-year lease in midtown; and Google building a $2 billion headquarters in Hudson Square. Even Citadel, whose CEO Ken Griffin was specifically targeted by Mamdani as the kind of rich New Yorker who should be taxed more heavily, is likely to be the anchor tenant of a $6 billion supertall office tower at 350 Park Avenue, where demolition recently began.
The trend is clear. “New York City may be led by a democratic socialist who spends a lot of time castigating big business and landlords and leading a progressive coalition determined to raise taxes on the wealthy and corporations,” writes business journalist Greg David in the City Reporter, “but leaders at some of the largest companies and professional service firms remain firmly committed to New York.”
Less than a year ago, prominent New Yorkers were fearfully predicting that Mamdani and his fellow socialists would chase billionaires, commerce, and jobs out of New York. “We don’t want more people to leave New York. We don’t want businesses to leave New York,” billionaire investor John Catsimatidis told me last November. “One percent of New Yorkers pay 48 percent of the taxes. If there’s an exodus, machine kaput.”
Wall Street ratings agencies changed their outlook on the city’s finances from “stable” to “negative” after Mamdani was sworn in, and Steve Fulop, president of the Partnership for New York City business organization, warned of bad times ahead. “The reality is that JPMorgan has more employees in Texas than they do here. Goldman Sachs hasn’t added a net job in like a decade,” he told me in May. “People want to be in New York City. There are unique assets here, so they’re always going to be here. But they’re gonna scale up and invest elsewhere if they’re pushed. Nobody’s bluffing.”
For those who like to bet, here’s a sure thing: As long as young people keep flocking to New York in search of fame, fortune, and excitement, the giant corporations whose fortunes are built on their creativity and intellect will remain here. Just since Mamdani took office, a lot has happened that will keep them coming, including the Knicks world championship, World Cup watch parties, the over-the-top celebrity wedding of you-know-who, and the spending spree from the record $49 billion in bonuses paid out on Wall Street, which last year employed a record-high 209,000 people.
“New York City is back. The people who work here, live here, they feel the energy, they have the conviction, and they have every right,” an exuberant Scott Rechler, CEO of the RXR real-estate firm, said at a business conference last fall. “In our business right now, we are seeing CEO after CEO committing to the city. We’re seeing a record level of leasing in office buildings. And it’s not just for next year, it’s for 2028, 2030, 2032.”
“No one has put their pencils down. No one is calling the moving trucks,” agreed Bill Rudin of Rudin Management, another big real-estate firm. “Companies are expanding and taking space.”
Mamdani, like any good politician, is riding the wave and playing the very lucky hand he’s been dealt, seeking to squeeze whatever jobs and tax revenue he can get from New York’s megabusinesses. “We appreciate any investment in our city, and we want our city to continue to have a strong economy,” he told me. “We also want the strength of the economy to be measured by the way that it meets the needs of working people,” he said — a pivot back to the tax-the-rich philosophy that helped him win City Hall last year.
The mayor’s approach has been successful enough to scare off any credible local political opponents. Three critics who have announced they are considering a run against Mamdani in 2029 are John Chell, a retired NYPD chief of department; comedian Michael Rapaport; and WABC radio host Sid Rosenberg, a bigot who recently had to apologize for calling the mayor an “America-hating, Jew hating, Radical Islam cockroach” during one of his on-air rants.
None of these men have run for office before or developed any kind of political presence or base. None are remotely serious enough to change the minds, or win the support, of the hardheaded business titans who have sized up the situation and decided to continue investing billions of dollars in New York despite the election of a socialist mayor.
A few true believers, like New York Post columnist Charlie Gasparino, have loudly urged the business community to push back against Mamdani, to little avail. Leaders of the city’s global firms realize they operate in an economic symbiosis with the city’s young creatives: An army of mostly progressive young professionals — a key part of Mamdani’s base — powers and staffs the Wall Street hedge funds, ad agencies, law firms, tech companies, fashion firms, and arts organizations, which collectively generate untold billions in wealth every year.
New York politics, in the age of Mamdani, will not be a fight to overthrow capitalism; the battle will be over how to share the loot more equitably.
I asked the mayor: What’s your answer to critics who say you’re trying to destroy big businesses?
He shrugged. “My answer is to just take a look around,” he said.
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