In the run-up to New York’s mayoral election, many business leaders described Zohran Mamdani as a catastrophe in the making. Corporate and Wall Street titans dumped $40 million into political action committees to try to prevent the young democratic socialist from winning, saying his proposals on crime and taxes would make New York less safe and companies unable to compete.
Since Mr. Mamdani’s resounding victory on Nov. 4, however, the business community has adopted a far more conciliatory tone. Though some are still predicting a rough road ahead or even threatening to flee the city, others have been extending olive branches and saying they want to try to work with the incoming mayor. JPMorgan Chase chief executive Jamie Dimon called Mr. Mamdani to offer his assistance. Hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, who had tried without success to recruit candidates to run against Mr. Mamdani, congratulated him on social media.
“Some have been surprised by my conciliatory post,” tweeted Mr. Ackman, who has decried Mr. Mamdani’s criticism of Israel. “Mamdani won a decisive election. He is going to be our mayor for the next four years.”
Why We Wrote This
New York’s financial community has long been a key voice in how the city runs. With Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist whose proposals are anathema to many business leaders, collaboration will likely require concessions from both sides.
The outreach is running in both directions. Since winning the Democratic primary in June, Mr. Mamdani has been quietly meeting with city stakeholders to get buy-in for his affordability agenda and to listen to their concerns. His charm offensive even included a recent high-profile trip to the White House, during which he and President Donald Trump held a friendly news conference after a private meeting in which they reportedly discussed New York real estate and utilities.
Mr. Mamdani’s early administrative appointments – including Dean Fuleihan as first deputy mayor, a position he held under former Mayor Bill de Blasio, and NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch, who will stay on in her current role – have reassured skeptics that he intends to fill City Hall with experienced hands. He has requested resignations from 179 Adams administration employees.
Still, many are in wait-and-see mode. By early next year, many of New York’s well-connected and influential business leaders could find themselves in the unusual position of being on the outside of the new mayor’s inner circle.
“The real estate industry is going to be very predictable. They’re going to work with him on stuff, and if there’s stuff they don’t like, they’ll fight it. They’re going to be engaged. The question is, what is the larger business community going to do?” says Jordan Barowitz, principal at Barowitz Advisory and a former aide to former Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
“Do they seek to have a voice in the granular operations? Or do they just go back to picking and choosing when they want to get involved?”
A coming fight over taxes
Mr. Mamdani’s biggest challenge might be navigating Wall Street’s resistance to his stated priorities on taxes and spending.
He campaigned on raising New York’s corporate tax rate from 7.25% to 11.5% and increasing taxes by two percentage points on New Yorkers making more than $1 million. Those tax hikes – decried almost unanimously by New York’s banking and corporate sectors – are meant to pay for expensive campaign promises such as a universal child-care program, free bus transit, and a public grocery store pilot.
New York Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul and state lawmakers, who set tax rates, are reportedly mulling over Mr. Mamdani’s proposals. Some lobbyists caution that the burden of funding the incoming mayor’s ambitious agenda will depress the city’s economy, making businesses less competitive in a way that ultimately hurts all New Yorkers.
“We see increased taxes as only contributing to a further affordability crisis,” said Kathryn Wylde, chief executive of the Partnership for New York City, which represents the city’s corporate leaders. “The goal, as far as we’re concerned, is to reduce costs, so we don’t have to constantly increase government spending.”
So far, that kind of pushback from corporate influencers hasn’t deterred Mr. Mamdani, who has also promised to identify and weed out government inefficiencies by hiring more auditors, streamlining contracts, and issuing more fines.
But in this fast-paced, sometimes ruthless city, it’s another Mr. Mamdani priority that could generate even more pushback from executives.
Lina Khan, who chaired the Federal Trade Commission under former President Joe Biden, has joined Mr. Mamdani’s transition team with specific instructions to explore ways to utilize local laws to crack down on predatory business practices. Some measures will require cooperation with the city council or state legislature. But Ms. Khan says the mayor has standalone power to sue “corporate lawbreakers” for things like price gouging through city agencies such as the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection.
Some conservatives aren’t waiting for Mr. Mamdani’s inauguration to hold the mayor-elect to account.
Recently, supermarket magnate John Catsimatidis, a longtime Trump supporter, convened a roundtable of business leaders and politicians on what was initially billed as a “watchdog group” to monitor the incoming Mamdani administration on public safety and other issues. Mr. Catsimatidis later insisted he actually wanted to work with the new mayor and try to find common ground.
“The one thing that we all hold in common is that we all love New York … and we want New York to thrive like it always has,” Mr. Catsimatidis said at a news conference.
“The real estate community is stuck”
City real estate owners might be more familiar with Mr. Mamdani than Wall Street executives, but that doesn’t mean they will get along with him any better.
One of Mr. Mamdani’s most prominent campaign pledges was to freeze rent increases for the city’s 1 million regulated apartments by appointing sympathetic members to the city’s rent guidelines board. Over the past four years, the board has approved a cumulative 12.6% rent hike cap for these homes since Mayor Eric Adams took office, or about 3% per year on one-year leases.
Mr. Mamdani’s move would halt that trend, worrying landlords who say they need the rental income to maintain their properties, given that insurance, real estate taxes, and utility expenses continue to rise.
“There is a myth that rent-stabilized housing is financially healthy. The reality is that one-third of the buildings are in fiscal distress and basically bankrupt, and another third will be bankrupt after four years of rent freezes,” said Kenny Burgos, head of the New York Apartment Association.
The mayor-elect’s plans to build new housing have been better received. Mr. Mamdani has proposed spending $100 billion in public funds to build 200,000 subsidized homes across the city’s five boroughs over the next decade, essentially tripling the annual production of affordable housing.
If Mr. Mamdani can actually accomplish this goal, he’ll become the “most pro-housing mayor that has ever existed in New York,” says David Schwartz, co-founder of Slate Property Group. “It’s exciting that we have a mayor who wants to produce tremendous amounts of affordable housing.”
Derek French/SOPA Images/Reuters
Meanwhile, Mr. Mamdani has continued meeting with prominent commercial real estate owners to make his pitch and to listen to their views.
He has previously acknowledged the role the private sector plays in addressing the city’s housing shortage and said he would adopt a Bloomberg-like managerial style at City Hall. But skepticism remains over his approach to development and tax reform.
“The real estate community is stuck. They are amenable because they have to be,” says Ms. Wylde of the Partnership for New York City. “The mayor has much more power over real estate than over any other industry.”
Allies in the tech industry
Some suggest Mr. Mamdani’s strongest alliances in the private sector might be with the city’s growing tech industry.
Employees of Google, Meta, and Amazon were among the largest groups of donors to Mr. Mamdani’s mayoral campaign this year, signifying broad support for his agenda among the city’s young professional class.
Julie Samuels, president and CEO of Tech:NYC, which represents the city’s tech industry, believes their embrace of the incoming mayor is based on cultural affinity.
“A lot about Zohran’s campaigns felt disruptive, and that resonated a lot with tech,” she says. “Part of it is an age thing, too. You’re going to have all these digital natives in City Hall, and that’s a good thing.”
At roundtable discussions hosted by Tech:NYC, participants have pressed Mr. Mamdani’s team to integrate technology, including artificial intelligence-powered programs, to improve the delivery of city services and expedite permit processing. Mayor-elect Mamdani did not make AI a focus of his campaign, though he warned about its potential to eliminate jobs.
“The tech sector feels more like the genie is not going back in the bottle, and we would all be better served to figure out policy answers,” particularly when it comes to AI, says Ms. Samuels. “The answer is to not put their head in the sand and say the tech is not going to come here.”
Still, highly regulated start-ups could find themselves in the mayor’s crosshairs anyway. The incoming Mamdani administration will face pressure from Airbnb to loosen restrictions preventing single-family homeowners from listing their properties on the platform for less than 30 days, which the city began enforcing two years ago.
The home-sharing company’s super PAC spent $1 million on a digital ad attacking Mr. Mamdani and two other mayoral candidates who did not support changes to the law.
And DoorDash dumped $1 million into a super PAC objecting to Mr. Mamdani’s call to raise the minimum wage to $30, classify delivery workers as employees, and strengthen licensure requirements for delivery apps.
Chris Coffey, chief executive of Tusk Strategies, who has created media campaigns for both Uber and Bird, expects DoorDash to try to make peace to get what it wants in City Hall – at least initially.
“I don’t see them meaningfully fighting the mayor now that he’s been elected,” he says. “They’re going to try to work with him and see what happens.”
