[source image]
Dow Jones NewsNov 5, 2:52 AM UTC
DJ Wall Street Couldn't Prevent Mayor Mamdani. Now It Has to Work with Him. -- WSJ
By Kevin T. Dugan
Wall Street heavyweights failed to stop New York City voters from electing a democratic socialist mayor. Now what?
There was an air of defeat on Tuesday evening in New York's upper echelons as it became clear that Zohran Mamdani had won the mayor's race. Some top figures in the city's finance industry found the notion of a Mamdani administration unthinkable and had spent millions to elevate other candidates.
Now, they have to work with the new mayor -- and hope that their worst fears about his impact on the city's business climate won't come true.
"It's about public safety and quality of life more broadly. Those go in the wrong direction and any employer is going to have a hard time attracting and keeping good people," said Ed Skyler, an executive at Citigroup and a deputy mayor in former Mayor Michael Bloomberg's administration.
Mamdani, 34 years old, has risen swiftly from an outer-borough backbencher in the state Assembly to the city's chief executive by harnessing the broad unrest many New Yorkers feel about being priced out. He has promised an additional 2% tax on millionaires and to raise taxes on businesses to pay for free buses, expanded child care and city-run grocery stores.
Such policies didn't sit well on Wall Street. At first, the odds of a Mamdani victory seemed remote, but his surprising Democratic-primary win in June jolted the finance industry into action. As the campaign heated up, firms such as Apollo Global Management and Citadel urged their employees to go out and vote. Hedge-fund billionaire Bill Ackman spent more than $2 million to stop him, though he was hardly the only one to throw money at less-than-competitive alternatives.
"He's spending more money against me than I would even tax him," Mamdani said of Ackman during a podcast episode that aired last month. "Every day it's like a million dollars, a million dollars -- I don't even want that much!"
Wall Street has benefited historically when the city flourished. And partnerships between Wall Street firms and the city helped fix broken infrastructure and clean up Central Park.
To some who worry about Mamdani's policies, random street crime is the primary concern. Murders fell from a high of more than 2,000 in 1990 to a modern low of 292 in 2017. Hate crimes in New York state rose 12.7% in 2023, with nearly 44% of all recorded hate-crime incidents and 88% of religious-based hate crimes targeting Jewish victims, according to a report from the state comptroller's office.
Some business types are taking comfort that Mamdani has indicated he plans to ask New York Police Department Commissioner Jessica Tisch to stay in her role. Tisch, a longtime public servant and the daughter of a billionaire, has earned strong marks from the business world for overseeing a broad drop in crime, and for how she addressed incidents such as the killing of four people at a Midtown Manhattan office building in July. It remains to be seen if she will accept.
"With respect to crime, for many of us, the canary in the coal mine is Jessica Tisch," said Rob Wiesenthal, the chief executive officer of Blade, the helicopter-on-demand company. "If she's replaced, that's the clearest signal our police department may morph into more of a Department of Public Safety -- with a greater focus on community well-being than law enforcement."
Apollo CEO Marc Rowan was in the audience on a recent October weekend when Park Avenue Synagogue's Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove told congregants that Mamdani posed "a danger" to New York's Jews.
Citadel, the hedge-fund firm run by billionaire Ken Griffin, sent an email in June urging its employees in New York to vote, and warned about "candidates with extreme views inconsistent with your values," according to a copy reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
Mamdani has criticized Israel and advocated for defunding the police, a position he has since walked back. Griffin relocated Citadel from Chicago to Miami a few years ago, citing crime in Chicago as a factor.
Others worry about instability that could come from Mamdani's dynamic with President Trump, who threw a last-minute endorsement to Mamdani's key opponent, former Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Trump has threatened an increased city presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and National Guard troops as well as impoundment of $18 billion in federal funds for infrastructure projects.
Antonio Weiss, the former head of investment banking at Lazard, said the city's relationship with Washington is likely to be the most immediate challenge.
"I certainly hope that New Yorkers will band together in the interests of the city," said Weiss, who unlike many of his peers in finance supported Mamdani in part for his focus on affordability.
As it stands, New York remains synonymous with wild ambition, one of the critical forces that has long driven the finance industry's dominance. On Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, JPMorgan Chase recently cut the ribbon on a new, $3 billion tower. The bank's Queens-born chief executive, Jamie Dimon, is about as close to an industry mascot as there is, and he vows to stay. Those who can't stomach the Mamdani era might have a different calculation.
"The notion that somebody would leave New York simply because Mamdani is elected is silly," said Brad Tusk, a venture capitalist who formerly managed Bloomberg's third campaign for mayor and later advised his administration. "You should leave New York if it doesn't work for your business."
One of the financiers considering whether he will stay in New York is Michael Gontar, the CEO of InterVest Capital Partners, a real-estate investment company. His walk to work in Manhattan takes Gontar past a men's homeless shelter, where he says people openly take drugs and occasionally have what appear to be episodes of mental distress.
A higher tax bill won't prompt Gontar to leave, but he is skeptical of Mamdani's plan to create a new agency that would assign priority to mental-health services and violence prevention.
"You're going to call a social worker because you have a guy who took his pants down and started defecating in front of school?" he said. "Good luck."
Write to Kevin T. Dugan at kevin.dugan@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 04, 2025 21:52 ET (02:52 GMT)
Copyright © 2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
