NEW YORK — Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani is facing a deeply skeptical business community that has long called the shots in New York. But don’t go looking for the moving vans just yet.
Kathy Wylde, the president of the business-backed Partnership for New York City, compared the relationship between her constituents and the mayor-elect to the seven stages of grief.
“We’re moving toward acceptance,” Wylde said.
Still, contingency plans are being prepared by some, even as the city’s wealthiest residents consider how to court the incoming mayor.
“Business people, smart business people, going into this are thinking, ‘Watch your ass, you’re in combat,’” said John Catsimatidis, a billionaire oil executive, grocery store tycoon and ally of President Donald Trump. “I talked to him once. He’s a young kid … He never ran anything. If he came in with a job application I wouldn’t hire him to run a supermarket.”
Catsimatidis, who unsuccessfully pressed Republican Curtis Sliwa to get out of the mayoral race to aid former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s bid, is weighing his business options.
“What I’m going to do is reduce my exposure to New York,” he said. “I have a lot of businesses in New York, I have a lot of assets in New York. Remember the old expression, ‘Don’t put all your eggs in one basket?’”
Mamdani will take office on Jan. 1, leading a city of 8.5 million residents that serves as the world’s financial and media capital — a money powerhouse that many of the planet’s wealthiest people call home. Now, those same business leaders — long accustomed to sympathetic mayors from Michael Bloomberg to Eric Adams — are adjusting to a leader who promises to upend the city’s economic order.
The mayor-elect wants permission from state officials to raise taxes on corporations and uber-rich New Yorkers to pay for his campaign promises like free child care and buses. His embrace of far-left democratic socialism supported by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders is anathema to the capitalists who have long wielded power in New York City.
The city’s monied class sank millions of dollars into super PACs in a futile effort to stop Mamdani’s insurgent candidacy, which was built on a populist appeal to voters outraged by the cost of living in a deeply expensive city. He did so with a volunteer army of thousands and millions of dollars in relatively modest donations.
Mamdani this week signaled he’s willing to talk with and work with some of the biggest of the biggest capitalists, name checking JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon during Wednesday morning remarks.
“It is critically important that we start to embody a style of leadership that does not demand agreement across every single issue,” Mamdani said. “In order to even have a conversation, we need to be able to deliver for New Yorkers, and that means to meet New Yorkers, even those with whom we have any disagreements. So I look forward to having those kinds of meetings, be it with Jamie Dimon or be it with other business leaders.”
Business titans are counting on New York’s moderate Democratic governor, Kathy Hochul, to block Mamdani from raising their taxes. And some met with him after he won the primary and others are seeking meetings now — determining whether the untested mayor-elect will be rigidly orthodox or open to compromise.
Wylde views Hochul, who endorsed Mamdani but is heading into her own tough reelection battle next year and wary of raising taxes, as a kind of fiscal firebreak.
The governor opposes hiking income and business taxes. Any deal to do so must be approved by the Democratic-dominated state Legislature and signed by Hochul.
“The governor has done a great job of reassuring the business community since the primary that she will not allow anything crazy on taxes and that she fully appreciates that New York has to stay competitive,” Wylde said.
People in real estate, meanwhile, have been comforted by Mamdani’s embrace of veteran City Hall hands like Maria Torres-Springer, who served three mayors, and respected city planning czar Dan Garodnick, who have worked well with the industry. Others have taken note of the mayor-elect’s increased attention to bringing down landlord costs as part of the equation for a multi-year rent freeze that was a pillar of his campaign platform.
“There isn’t going to be an exodus of people. There are definitely people that are going to leave, but I don’t think that’s going to be a trend — a Wall Street trend or a real estate trend — if in fact the city stays safe and prosperous,” said MaryAnne Gilmartin, president and CEO of development firm MAG Partners and a member of the Real Estate Board of New York, the industry’s leading trade group. “If he pays close attention to that, I think people will and should give him a chance.”
Even those who poured money into the unsuccessful efforts to stop Mamdani from winning are admitting he was onto something in a campaign that focused largely on cost of living issues facing New Yorkers.
Scott Rechler of RXR, a major developer, said in a statement Wednesday he’s “ready to work” with the mayor-elect. Rechler donated $250,000 to a pro-Cuomo super PAC in the Democratic primary, and reacted to Mamdani’s surprise win in June by expressing hope he could be beat in the general election.
Steven Roth, the CEO of Vornado Realty Trust, one of the city’s largest commercial landlords, also put money into a political action committee aimed at halting Mamdani. But, in an earnings call with investors hours before the polls closed Tuesday, he was sanguine. Roth said he was yet to see any pullback in demand for customers because of a Mamdani mayoralty.
“I'm an optimist and believe that everything will work out for the best,” Roth said.
Bill Ackman, the Trump ally and hedge fund titan who was one of the single largest donors in the mayoral race and opposed Mamdani, congratulated him on election night in a social media post.
“If I can help NYC, just let me know what I can do,” he said.
In a follow up post, Ackman doubled down on the conciliatory tone. “Mamdani won a decisive election,” he wrote. “He is going to be our mayor for the next four years.”
Dimon, who reportedly reached out to Mamdani on Wednesday, did a sitdown interview with CNN alongside Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, a lifelong Democrat who left the party and is running for Michigan governor as an independent. Asked if he could imagine himself doing a sitdown alongside Mamdani, Dimon said he would help someone if they wanted his help, but didn’t give a ringing endorsement.
“I’ve seen a lot of mayors, governors, political leaders — some grow into the job,” Dimon said. “And I’ve seen a lot who swell under the job, they never get around to it. They are so befuddled with politics and ideology. I’m hoping any mayor does what’s right to help the citizens of that city.”
Antonio Weiss, a Treasury official in the Obama administration and investor at the New York-based firm SSW Partners, said Mamdani is “substantive on policy yet open to learning more and to hearing additional perspectives.”
“Mamdani has made a serious effort to expand his coalition during the general election, and that has meant sitting down with people who don’t necessarily agree with him,” Weiss said.
The mayor-elect was a little-known state lawmaker when he launched his campaign and insiders didn’t know him like they knew the past several mayors who, despite widely different politics, were city hall veterans, like Bill de Blasio and Eric Adams.
One view is that Mamdani’s key platforms — free buses, freezing rent — were planting flags to show he’ll take bold steps but his ultimate policies will be more nuanced.
“What he’s signaling,” said Tom Wright, the head of the vaunted Regional Plan Association, “is he wants to fix the problem.”
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