Mamdani's Video Games

New York City’s Mayor Zohran Mamdani recently released a smug little video promoting New York State’s proposed new pied-a-terre tax, basically an extra (and steep) levy on expensive ($5 million and above) NYC property owned by people who do not live in the city (and thus make less use of its services, but never mind). In it, Mamdani pointed to an apartment bought by Ken Griffin for $238 million. Griffin, the founder and CEO of Citadel, used to live in Chicago, but, after things went downhill there, moved to Florida along with much of Citadel’s business operations.

Griffin has not abandoned Gotham, however. In fact, the opposite is true. He has that expensive apartment (on which the taxes must be immense), and Citadel has announced plans for a $6 billion new office building on Park Avenue (more property taxes!) in which it would be an investor and anchor tenant. This would be good news for the city’s construction workers and the completed building would house a lot of highly paid (and thus highly taxed) workers, as well as a good number of ancillary staff.

Under the circumstances, it seems tactless of Mamdani to have singled out Griffin’s apartment in that video.

Bloomberg:

Citadel responded in a message to employees, pushing back on the mayor’s comments.

“It is shameful that he used Ken’s name as the example of those who supposedly aren’t carrying their fair share of the burdens associated with New York City’s often costly and wasteful spending,” Chief Operating Officer Gerald Beeson wrote in the email. “The Mayor has once again manifested the ignorance and disdain of the elite political class towards those who have been consistently committed to building one of the greatest cities in the world.”

Included in the correspondence was a list of contributions both Citadel and Griffin have made to New York, including a veiled threat that the financial-services firm is considering pulling out of its new office development. . . .

The development is expected to contribute $4.5 billion into the local economy and generate 6,200 construction jobs and 15,200 permanent positions, according to city filings from last year.

So why did Mamdani do what he did?

Did the class warfare he so enjoys go to his head, or did he assume that Griffin would just shrug?

Only a cynic would suggest that a poorer New York City might be a more effective power base for someone with Mamdani’s ideological beliefs, so that can’t be it.