New York City is waking up to a new political era — and it’s wearing pleather, not pinstripes.
At 34, Zohran Mamdani has just been elected mayor of the nation’s largest city, and his win is sending a thunderclap through boardrooms and brownstones alike. The democratic socialist, known for his unapologetically progressive platform, has pitched a new vision for New York: rent freezes, free child care, publicly owned grocery stores, and a 2% flat tax on millionaires. Oh — and he’s made it clear he doesn’t believe billionaires should exist.
It’s no wonder Wall Street’s collective jaw is somewhere near the floor.
Mamdani’s rise is historic, not just for his age or ideology, but for how decisively he captured the public’s imagination — and the city’s top office. The response from the business world, however, has been a study in contrast: part congratulatory, part existential panic.
He went from claiming a jihadi was about to win to sucking up to this “Marxist Islamist.”
These aren’t credible people, the interlopers from 2024. https://t.co/drd2X2HGnw
— Cernovich (@Cernovich) November 5, 2025
Bill Ackman, who spent $1.75 million trying to block Mamdani’s path to Gracie Mansion, was among the first to extend an olive branch. “Congrats on the win,” he wrote on X, offering help for the city despite “concerns about the unintended and negative consequences” of Mamdani’s policies. It was a notable pivot for the hedge fund titan, whom Mamdani once roasted publicly for his “1,000-word tweets.”
Others weren’t as diplomatic. Ken Griffin, the Citadel CEO and GOP megadonor who famously relocated his firm from Chicago to Miami, expressed thinly veiled dread. “For the people of New York, I pray that the policies Mamdani uses to govern… are different than the talking points he used to win,” Griffin said, warning that Mamdani’s leadership could prompt another exodus — this time from New York to Florida.
But it wasn’t all doom and gloom. Surprisingly, many Wall Street back-office workers — the less visible gears of the financial machine — were found to have quietly donated to Mamdani’s campaign. And figures like Yasser Salem, a former McKinsey executive advising Mamdani, claim that some C-suite players are warming to pieces of his agenda, especially those aimed at easing pressure on working families.
Meanwhile, institutional voices like the Real Estate Board of New York issued standard-issue congratulations, promising to collaborate on the city’s looming housing affordability crisis — a cornerstone of Mamdani’s $100 billion, 10-year plan to triple subsidized housing production.
RICHARD BARIS: Bill Ackman just congratulated Marxist Mamdani and offered to “help NYC.” This is who the GOP donor class really is. Traitors who lick crumbs off Democrat tables while pretending to share your values.
They eat well while you can’t pay your rent. It’s DISGUSTING. pic.twitter.com/n0vgkiEVyW
— Bannon’s WarRoom (@Bannons_WarRoom) November 5, 2025
Even Andrew Yang, whose own political moment fizzled not long ago, praised Mamdani as a “sincere and talented messenger” in his post-election reflections.
Still, no message captured the ideological contrast quite like that of Alex Soros, heir to the Open Society Foundations, who declared Mamdani’s victory as proof that “the American dream continues.”
The mayor-elect now faces a city whose infrastructure is crumbling, whose working class is suffocating, and whose wealth gap yawns wider by the year. Whether Mamdani can translate vision into viable governance is the question that hangs over this moment.
