Mamdani's $6 billion mistake |
Mamdani’s $6 billion mistake
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani just made the biggest mistake of his young career.
Well, not bigger than allowing 18 people to freeze to death on New York’s sidewalks because of his deadly ideology. And probably not bigger than ignoring the city’s yawning budget deficit before promising freebies he cannot deliver. But taking on one of Wall Street’s big boys, and then getting squashed for it, ranks right up there.
Yes, New York’s mayor had the bad judgment to make Ken Griffin, CEO and founder of Citadel, one of the nation’s most successful financial firms, the poster child for his “tax the rich” political crusade. And Griffin punched back, apparently much to the surprise of the young socialist.
On April 15, Mamdani posted a video filmed outside Griffin’s 24,000-square-foot penthouse to pitch his “pied-a-terre” tax saying, “This is an annual fee on luxury properties worth more than $5 million, whose owners do not live full-time in the city. Like for this penthouse, which hedge fund CEO Ken Griffin bought for $238 million.”
Speaking days later at an investment conference in Oslo, Griffin linked the mayor’s video to today’s “demonizing” of business leaders, which he tied to other acts of violence. “What upset me was the personal attack,” he said. “Not too far from where I live in New York is where they assassinated the CEO of UnitedHealthcare.”
Once again, Mamdani failed to do his homework. Had he checked, he would have discovered that Griffin has a history of punching back.
After all, in 2022 Griffin moved Citadel’s long-time headquarters from Chicago to Miami, blaming the soft-on-crime policies and high taxes imposed by Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot for the move. Even former Obama aide David Axelrod was appalled,........