New York City’s business community has shown little appetite for an open fight with Zohran Mamdani. But his latest move tied to the contentious pied-à-terre tax is testing that restraint, On The Money has learned.
This week, Mamdani’s City Hall released the names of taxpayers targeted by his levy on owners of apartments valued at $5 million or more that are not used as primary residences.
Critics call the tax misguided because many of these affluent, often out-of-state property owners make limited use of city services while already contributing heavily to New York’s state and local tax base. The risk, they warn, is obvious: Some may decide that buying in Boca Raton looks more appealing than keeping a luxury apartment in Manhattan.
The public disclosure has also intensified accusations that Mamdani is leaning into a harsher brand of class politics. To opponents, the list amounts to a public naming-and-shaming campaign aimed at wealthy New Yorkers whom City Hall believes should be paying more. It is the kind of move they say plays well with his Democratic Socialists of America base, while forcing those named to defend themselves against a potentially costly new tax regime.
Several business figures who spoke on condition of anonymity said they also found the tactic unsettling on a personal-safety level. When headlines about “the list” began circulating, some said they immediately thought of Brian Thompson, the UnitedHealthcare CEO who was killed in New York, and Luigi Mangione, the suspect accused in the case.
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Steve Fulop, president of the Partnership for New York City, the city’s largest business advocacy organization, has grown increasingly frustrated by what he sees as the demonization of business leaders and high-earning residents. Those New Yorkers, he argues, shoulder much of the city’s tax burden and help fund the broad social programs Mamdani wants to expand.
Fulop has tried to keep lines of communication open with the mayor and his team. But after the uproar over the taxpayer list, people familiar with his thinking say he appears to have concluded that City Hall may need to be challenged more directly, rather than simply persuaded behind closed doors.
As a result, Fulop is now working on a broader action plan. He is said to be keeping the details close, in part to avoid giving Mamdani’s allies an early look. The effort, according to those familiar with it, centers on building political support for candidates and officeholders willing to push back against the DSA’s agenda in New York City.
Fulop reminds me that the first target of Mamdani’s class warfare campaign surrounding this tax – Ken Griffin, the billionaire head of the Citadel investment empire who was front and center in a “creepy” Mamdani video touting the tax a few months back – can afford 24-7 private security. Most of those who made Mamdani’s list may have some means, but they are far from super-rich, and now they’re on their own.
“This is a mistake, and a dangerous precedent,” Fulop said. “Publishing names and addresses singles out people who have done nothing wrong, at a moment when the far left already treats success itself as something to be punished. Most of the people on that list aren’t billionaires by any stretch – they’re people that believed in NYC, worked hard and bought a second home. All this does is make people feel less safe in their own city, and less welcome in it”
One mainstream Democratic political adviser who believes Mamdani and his radical chic pals will lead the party to ruin says her friends in the business elite are scared and rightfully so.
“(Mamdani) is paving the way for a future Luigi psychopath,” she told me.
Of course this one act of stupidity isn’t really the point; it’s an accumulation of cultural Marxism and Third-Worldism that emanates from an office that is supposed to be in charge primarily of educating kids, picking up garbage and keeping the streets safe.
One day, our 34-year-old mayor is refusing to disavow the leftist rallying call “Globalize the Intifada” that aims to eliminate Israel from the face of the earth. The next, he’s musing about arresting Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu for “war crimes” aka defending his country against Hamas terrorists and forgetting about something known as “diplomatic immunity.”
Then there’s the economic Marxism: His government grocery store boondoggle won’t stop rich people from shopping at Whole Foods, but it will likely put a lot of mom-and-pop bodegas out of business. Guess who pays for the subsidies in a city that already doles out lots to the poor? The working and middle class.
Taxes are going up on everyone and businesses are leaving, and so are people who used to hide from rapacious governments through owning NYC municipal debt. As we reported, prices have been dropping because it’s not worth the risk of financing Mamdani’s Marxism. Cops are getting short changed in Mamdani’s record budget in his version of a city that welcomes poor migrants from around the world.
Yes, NYC is becoming a dangerous place to live and the business community knows it.
A City Hall spokesman had no immediate comment.
