November 11, 2025 | 11:57 am
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Zohran Mamdani's campaign for mayor of New York has angered American billionaires, who were willing to pour tens of millions of dollars to stop his ambitions.
However, they failed.
The 34-year-old Democratic politician has promised to provide services for New York residents such as free public transportation, free childcare, and a government-run grocery store that sells inexpensive goods.
Almost all of these would be funded by a 1 percent tax on the income of billionaires residing in New York City.
Unwilling to be taxed, 26 billionaires and wealthy individuals in New York joined forces to raise approximately US$22 million, or about Rp367 billion, to stop the aspirations of the Uganda-born man of Indian descent. This was reported by Forbes and cited by NDTV.
New Yorkers chose to stand behind Mamdani rather than succumbing to the pressure from the billionaires. Mamdani was elected as the 111th mayor of New York with more than 50 percent of the votes.
The election also made history as it was the first time that two million votes were cast.
Mamdani responded to this on October 13 during one of his campaign events, "Billionaires like Bill Ackman and Ronald Lauder (Estee Lauder cosmetics group; ed.) have poured millions of dollars into this competition because they say we are an existential threat. I'm here to admit something: They are right."
Anti-Mamdani Billionaires
Among the donors who sought to block Mamdani's candidacy were Michael Bloomberg, the co-founder of Bloomberg LP; hedge fund manager Bill Ackman; Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia; and Lauder family members, heirs to the Estee Lauder cosmetics company.
Each of them contributed at least US$100,000 to independent expenditure committees and political action committees supporting Andrew Cuomo, Mamdani's rival.
Michael Bloomberg himself donated US$8 million to support Cuomo in the Democratic primary election. While Ackman donated US$1.75 million, and Lauder added US$750,000.
More than half of the contributions, around US$13.6 million, were given before Mamdani secured the Democratic Party nomination on June 24. Bloomberg's contribution in June amounted to US$8.3 million to Fix The City, Inc., comprising a large portion of the pre-primary election contributions.
Other prominent donors include Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings and media tycoon Barry Diller, who each contributed US$250,000.
Conservative donors also contributed, such as casino tycoon Steve Wynn, who donated US$500,000 in October, and oil baron John Hess, who contributed US$1 million over several months.
Billionaires' Attitude After Mamdani's Election
After Mamdani was elected, some figures who had previously opposed him offered assistance.
One of them was Bill Ackman. The Jewish, pro-Israeli investor congratulated Mamdani.
"Now you have a big responsibility. If I can help NYC, tell me what I can do," Ackman wrote in a post on X.
Another figure was Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase. He said he was open to maintaining communication.
"If I think it's productive, I'll continue to do so. I'm willing to help any mayor, any governor," said Dimon.
However, before Zohran Mamdani was elected, Dimon had said that Mamdani was "more of a Marxist than a socialist."
Unlike Ackman and Dimon, other billionaires like John Catsimatidis, whose conglomerate operates in the supermarket sector, threatened to move his business out of New York.
He did this particularly in response to Mamdani's policy to create government-managed shopping locations, as reported by Newsweek.
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