Citadel CEO Ken Griffin told CNBC that his company has begun shifting investments toward Miami in response to the viral Tax Day video of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani calling out the hedge-fund chief.
“In response to New York, we have filed a permit with the city of Miami. We have added several million square feet of new space to our new building,” the billionaire told CNBC’s Sarah Eisen in an exclusive interview at the Milken Institute Global Conference on Tuesday.
“We will be adding more jobs to Miami over the next decade as an immediate and direct result of the mayor’s poor judgment here regarding posting that video,” Griffin said.
He said Citadel’s decision to proceed with an expensive redevelopment of the Park Avenue building – which the company says will cost more than $6 billion and help create more than 15,000 permanent jobs – has become “a real topic of debate”.
But “we’ll probably only consider the building when it’s all said and done,” he said.
He also claimed that Mamdani’s video “hurt me”, referencing the 2024 murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson outside a midtown Manhattan hotel near his penthouse.
Griffin said, “I have had no feud or issue or dynamic with the new mayor for a long time,” yet he “turned me into a political puppet.”
“It was in absolutely bad taste,” Griffin said. “Really bad taste.”
Mamdani’s press secretary Joe Calvello, responding to Griffin’s comments at the Milken conference, told CNBC in a statement on Wednesday that the mayor “wants all New Yorkers to succeed.”
Calvello said, “This includes the business owners and entrepreneurs who create good-paying jobs and make this city the economic engine of America. It also includes Ken Griffin, who is a major employer in our city and a powerful figure in our economy.”
He added, “However, this does not negate the fact that our tax system is fundamentally broken. It rewards excessive wealth while pushing working people to the brink.”
“The status quo is unsustainable and unjust. If we want this city to be a place where working people can afford, we need meaningful tax reform that allows even the wealthiest New Yorkers to contribute their fair share.”
Mamdani, a democratic socialist who took office in January, Shared a video on April 15 Unveiling a new pied-à-terre tax – an annual fee on luxury properties worth more than $5 million whose owners do not live in the city full-time.
The video was staged outside 220 Central Park South, where Griffin purchased a penthouse in 2019 for approximately $238 million, breaking the record for the highest-priced home ever sold in the US.
The pied-à-terre tax is “designed specifically for the richest people — those who accumulate their wealth in New York City real estate, but who don’t actually live here,” the mayor said. said in the video.
“But still, they are able to reap the enormous financial rewards of owning property in the greatest city in the world,” Mamdani said.
“Most of the time, these units sit vacant because, again, they don’t actually live here,” he said. “This is a fundamentally unfair system that hurts working New Yorkers. Now it has to end.”
Mamdani said the tax would raise at least $500 million “directly for the city.”
Griffin told CNBC on Tuesday that when he first saw the video, “I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.”
He said the pied-à-terre tax “discriminates against a narrow group of people.”
“The only decision we’ve made in the last few days without any regrets is to expand the size of our office in our new Miami headquarters,” he said.
Griffin said, “You know what New York City needs, and what New York State needs right now, a government that deals with the bloated, dysfunctional government that places an incredible burden on the lives of all New Yorkers.”
He said, “I don’t think any city should be so arrogant as to assume it’s insulated from economic realities and the hard, cold fact that when people who have achieved success are told they’re not welcome or invited, they’ll leave.”