Reactions from business leaders to Zohran Mamdani’s victory in the New York City mayoral race ranged from cautious optimism to outright alarm.
Mamdani, 34, defeated former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to become the city’s 111th mayor and first-ever Muslim to be elected to the post.
According to FOX Business, Pershing Square CEO Bill Ackman, who has been sharply critical of Mamdani’s policies, congratulated him on X Tuesday evening, writing, “Now you have a big responsibility. If I can help NYC, just let me know what I can do.”
Partnership for New York City CEO Kathryn Wylde also extended congratulations, saying her organization looks forward to helping Mamdani “achieve his affordability goals while keeping New York competitive as a destination for talent and a generator of jobs and economic activity.”
Wylde added that the group, which includes CEOs from about 300 major companies such as JPMorgan Chase, BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, Verizon, and Pfizer, supports Mamdani’s “hopeful message” and aims to “extend the benefits and opportunities of our great city to all New Yorkers.”
Not all responses were positive.
Palantir Technologies CEO Alex Karp told CNBC, “We’re about to probably have a complete disaster. I was born in New York.” He added, “If you asked, ‘do these things actually work?’ Everyone’s like, ‘of course, I’m not going to vote for that.’ Instead, they ask, ‘does it work in theory?’”
Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy was even more blunt.
“If this is what the people of NYC want then so be it. Thank god I don’t live there anymore,” he posted on X. Portnoy has previously described Mamdani as “closer to a communist.”
Andrew Yang, the former presidential candidate and CEO of Noble Mobile, took a more measured tone, posting, “Zohran Mamdani is the mayor-elect of New York City — and the hard part almost certainly lies ahead.”
