New York’s Billionaires Are Bending the Knee to Zohran Mamdani

Zohran Mamdani speaks during the Fighting Oligarchy town hall on Sept in New York City Photo Michael M Santiago Getty Images Boy does it feel good in New York City On Tuesday night just over minutes after polls closed Zohran Mamdani won the vote to become the city s next mayor To do so he overcame substantial political headwinds The man who will be our first Muslim mayor was constantly tarred as an antisemite and as too often seems to follow was subject to an undercurrent of Islamophobic attacks about sharia law and global jihad throughout the race Mamdani also faced the city s ruling class of millionaires and billionaires who engaged in a few heartwarming class solidarity by spending tens of millions against him and vowing to flee the headquarters of global capital if he won which perhaps motivated ordinary New Yorkers to turn out to help the mayor-elect In other words the New York assembly member stared down the ruling class and still won In a stunning turn of events numerous of those high-class naysayers have come right back around to offer a helping hand in governing the city effectively bending the knee to the man they cast as an existential threat Chiefest among these converts is billionaire hedge fund mogul Bill Ackman who famously contributed nearly million of his own money to efforts to kill Mamdani s candidacy and warned on social media that the city would become much more dangerous and economically unviable after Mamdani routed former New York Gov Andrew Cuomo in the June Democratic primary In that same Twitter tome Ackman promised there were hundreds of million of dollars of capital available if the right candidate would entirely throw his hat in the race and reduced the democratic will of the people to a plug-and-play scheme where this mythical person would be able to defeat Mamdani solely by running Michael Bloomberg s how-to-win-the-mayoralty IP It s well worth noting that New York saw the highest turnout in a mayoral balloting in more than years As a consequence it was with no small measure of glee that I read the Pershing Square Capital boss s tweet on Tuesday night at-ing Mamdani congrats on the win Now you have a big responsibility If I can help NYC just let me know what I can do A rival billionaire hedge fund guy responded by calling this olive branch gimp-like If that s what it takes so be it Related Democrats Swept Tuesday Night s Voting Now What Elsewhere in the world of high finance JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon who previously called Mamdani more a Marxist than a socialist and slammed him as pushing ideological mush that means nothing in the real world is also offering his help In an interview with CNN on Wednesday Dimon urged Mamdani to call up the outgoing mayor of Detroit for advice because that s the way you learn which is more than a little bit condescending The billionaire also revealed he left a message for Mamdani the day after the polling and selflessly offered to meet with him If I find it productive I ll continue to do it The mayor-elect for his part responded that he d take the CEO up on the offer despite not agreeing across every single issue With all due respect New York City is not Detroit a city that was hollowed out by corporate flight and Dimon whose bank has invested billion in that city s recovery seems to know this full well Detroit wasn t like New York which is kind of healthy he narrated CNN That s a real understatement especially for the ultra-wealthy Elsewhere the crypto billionaire Mike Novogratz urged his countrymen to reach out to Mamdani Once he s the mayor we ve got to be sure he s thriving in keeping New York a thriving district he communicated Bloomberg News on Wednesday a population for whom Novogratz did not say He s tapping into a message that s real that we ve got a tale of two cities in the Dickensian sense to a degree we haven t seen since we ve been alive and can you address the affordability issue in creative solutions without driving business out The crypto industry might mourn the booster it had in the outgoing mayor but something tells me business at large is going to be alright This isn t to say everyone at the top has gracefully accepted the results Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia whose company was severely affected by new city rules limiting short-term rentals and who donated million total to two anti-Mamdani super PACs hasn t publicly reacted to the news Bloomberg the former mayor who poured million into fighting the red menace has also stayed quiet Crashouts abounded lower on the tax bracket as well It remains to be seen how Mamdani will govern and how big business will respond A large number of onlookers have been eager to point out that the facts of governance and the world as it exists in the modern day will likely involve compromises and as a outcome disappointments I m sure various New Yorkers would love for Mamdani to leave these billionaires on read for all eternity but New Yorkers are not known for their naivet It s still a giddy feeling to see the masters of the universe sweat and prostrate themselves if only for now Our lame-duck court-jester mayor got at least one thing right during his tenure The haters truly do become your waiters at the table of success The post New York s Billionaires Are Bending the Knee to Zohran Mamdani appeared first on The Intercept