Hedge fund billionaire Dan Loeb is not optimistic about the future of New York if Democratic candidate Zohran Mamdani is elected mayor.
It’s officially hot commie summer.
— Daniel S. Loeb (@DanielSLoeb1) June 25, 2025
Like Michael Keaton, playing the hip mortician's assistant in "Night Shift," Mamdani is an "idea man."
And oh, brother, what "ideas" he's come up with.
— 🇺🇸 Kyle Bass 🇹🇼 (@Jkylebass) June 25, 2025
Wall Street adores idea men. It's just that Mamdani's "ideas" border on lunacy. And Wall Street does not adore lunacy.
On May 27, former governor Andrew Cuomo had odds on Polymarket of 93% to win. Those are 2016 Hillary Clinton numbers there (95% on October 20). A Super-PAC connected to investor Whitney Tilson purchased more than $25 million in negative ads directed at the 33-year-old assemblyman.
Cuomo had Wall Street in his back pocket, including billionaire figures such as Bill Ackman, Loeb, and former Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
“There are a lot of warning signs flashing here. The next mayor here is going to have his hands full,” said Ed Skyler, a former deputy mayor under Bloomberg.
In a city with a Democratic Party registration of 2-1, the GOP candidate, Curtis Sliwa, doesn't have much of a chance, especially since incumbent Mayor Eric Adams will be on the ballot under party lines he created: “Safe&Affordable” and “EndAntiSemitism.” There's a good chance the Wall Street deep pockets will throw in with Adams to avoid a Mamdani victory in the general election.
Corporate leaders held a flurry of private phone calls to plot how to fight back against Mamdani’s primary victory and discussed backing an outside group with the goal of raising around $20 million to oppose him, according to people familiar with the matter.
The calls also discussed efforts to coalesce behind Adams and working to keep Cuomo out of the race, the people said. They also discussed trying to get Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa, to drop out by getting the White House to offer him a job in the Trump administration, the people said.
Not everyone was downbeat about the primary results, though. On CNBC, Philippe Laffont, founder of hedge fund Coatue Management, said the city would likely continue to thrive, arguing that it withstood the tenure of de Blasio, who embraced policies that some in the business community opposed.
“We had Mayor de Blasio for eight years, New York is really strong, I’m hopeful the same will happen,” Laffont said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” “And there’s still an election.”
“I can’t believe I even need to say this, but socialism doesn’t work,” said the CEO of Professional Capital Management, Anthony Pompliano. “It has failed in every American city it was tried.”
Every "American city"? Any city, anywhere, and everywhere, all at once, and forever, socialism has been an utter and complete failure.
So, how did Zohan the Magnificent do it? He used a slick social media campaign that Democratic Party politicians will try to duplicate over the next twenty years.
Just on Tuesday, he appeared in an Instagram video with Emily Ratajkowski, who has over 29 million followers on the platform. The model and actress wore a “Hot Girls for Zohran” t-shirt and urged voters to go to the polls.
It was typical of the savvy and hustle that helped Mamdani amass an army of tens of thousands of volunteers, who relentlessly knocked on doors, stood on street corners and posted on social media to exhort voters. They evangelized his policies: Free childcare, cheaper groceries at government-owned stores, free bus rides, a rent freeze and more — much of it paid for with tax hikes on the rich.
Not mentioned: Those tax increases would need approval from New York State Governor Kathy Hochul, who has said she is opposed to the idea. Mamdani also wants to raise $70 billion in debt, another effort that has little chance of succeeding.
Emily Ratajkowski just posted this on Instagram with Zohran pic.twitter.com/H2QTMhgsnk
— Read Starting Somewhere (@JPHilllllll) June 24, 2025
Even if Mamdani is unable to pass most of his ruinously expensive, freedom-destroying agenda, he can still do plenty of damage. This is what Wall Street investors and leaders are afraid of.
Wall Street and the city that supports it are mystical places that exist only in the minds of their admirers. The "New York City" of the 1950s and early '60s was the height of American civilization. It pulsed. It throbbed. It was alive with music, art, theater, and a cultural vibe not seen in the West since Athens. Far more than Paris or London, New York City was where it was at.
It hasn't been that way for decades, of course. However, the mythical New York City that the Golden Age represented is used to attract money, tourists, and businesses. Wall Street is real, but the rest is a mirage.
What frightens the money men is that Mamdani's incompetence and stupidity will explode the mirage and expose New York City for the achingly ordinary metropolis it is, no different than Chicago or Los Angeles.
"New York is the center of the world," exclaimed Gypsy Rose Lee's mother to a secretary in "Gypsy."
"New York is the center of New York," the secretary replied. That says it all.
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