Mayor Zohran Mamdani stepped up his outreach to New York’s business elite this week in an attempt to soothe the feelings of the city’s richest denizens, who remain miffed over a video shot in front of a billionaire’s apartment announcing a plan to tax second homes.
Mamdani sat down on Monday with JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon at the bank’s Manhattan headquarters and with Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon at Gracie Mansion. The meetings follow similar listening sessions with the heads of Blackstone and Bank of America and follow the uproar of the mayor starring in a video that used billionaire Ken Griffin’s $238 million apartment as a backdrop to announce a tax on non-primary residences valued at $5 million or more.
Griffin — who owns more than a dozen homes, including two in the city — was not pleased by his inclusion in the recording, calling it a “frightening” threat that made him fear for his life. Fellow business execs were equally incensed; Apollo Global Management reportedly decided to open a “second headquarters” outside New York, while hedge-fund manager Dan Loeb mused that the video would lead to an exodus to Florida. Steven Roth, the CEO of Vornado Realty Trust, described the mayor’s “tax the rich” commentary “to be just as hateful as some disgusting racial slurs,” including calls for ethnic cleansings. (Yes, really!)
