Last month, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani celebrated Tax Day by making good on a campaign promise. “When I ran for mayor, I said I was going to tax the rich,” Mamdani said in a viral video posted to social media. “Today, we’re taxing the rich.”
Mamdani went on to describe New York’s proposed pied-á-terre tax, a collaboration with Gov. Kathy Hochul. The tax specifically targets the owners of residential properties in New York City worth more than $5 million that they don’t live in full time, or “the richest of the rich,” as Mamdani called them in his video.
One such property that would be subject to the new tax belongs to billionaire Citadel CEO Kenneth Griffin. In 2019, Griffin bought a Manhattan penthouse for $239 million, the most expensive residential sale in U.S. history, though the unit doesn’t serve as Griffin’s primary residence. To make his point, Mamdani used Griffin’s penthouse as the backdrop for his video, a callout that earned him kudos across social media.
But one person wasn’t happy with Mamdani’s choice of setting: Griffin himself, who responded to Mamdani’s video in a new interview.
Beyond saying that Mamdani filming outside his home was in “really poor taste,” Griffin said the mayor’s new tax exemplifies everything wrong with New York City—and that as far as Griffin is concerned, his home city of Miami is poised to usurp it as the business capital of America.
Making Miami the new NYC
In his interview with CNBC, Griffin said Mamdani’s pied-á-terre tax is likely to drive America’s business leaders away from New York City. “The tax itself is a tax that discriminates against a narrow group of people,” he said.
The tax has led Griffin to question his hedge fund Citadel’s planned $6 billion investment in New York City, a proposed supertall office tower at 350 Park Avenue. “Are they going to now have a special tax rate for those that own office buildings who live out of state?” Griffin asked. “Where does this stop in New York?”
