In early September, Kathy Wylde, one of New York’s undisputed power brokers, met with Zohran Mamdani, then one of the longest of long-shot candidates in the New York City mayor’s race.
In a coffee shop on the ground floor of 85 Broad St. in lower Manhattan, once Goldman Sachs’s headquarters, the democratic socialist made the case that while he would be focused on income inequality, he was also open to working with the city’s business elite.
“He said, ‘Look, I’m not in favor of government taking over your business,'” Wylde said. “He made clear that he’s not anticapitalist in that sense.”
Mamdani’s shocking win in the Democratic primary last month has polarized the business community of the U.S.’s most economically critical city. Inside investment banks and during breakfast meetings, the very mention of Mayor Eric Adams’s potential left-wing successor has set off rancor and fear among the business elite, some of whom say they are considering leaving the city altogether.
And then there are the Mamdani millionaires. Voting data show a little less than a third of the city’s wealthiest supported Mamdani, and interviews with CEOs, traders, investors, and corporate lawyers pulling for him show they are willing to trade a cut of their one-percenter earnings to fund his more equitable vision of the Big Apple’s future. They believe years of widening income inequality has harmed the city’s ability to attract talent and think a stronger social safety net is needed to reverse the decline.
Coupled with small-business owners who see hope in his policies, some of New York’s business-world stalwarts are surprising allies of the coalition that spurred Mamdani’s rise.
Bradley Tusk, a venture capitalist who formerly managed Michael Bloomberg’s third campaign for mayor and later advised his administration, posted on LinkedIn that New Yorkers should “do what we can to help him succeed.” Keith McNally, owner of see-and-be-seen eatery Balthazar, called Mamdani “fantastic” in an Instagram post. “More so, when my affluent, paranoid friends tell me Mamdani’s dangerous,” he added.
“In my eyes, I should absolutely be paying my fair share for the people that need it,” said James Hueston, a 27-year old venture capitalist who said he was speaking for himself and not on behalf of his employer. “I don’t think that he’s increasing taxation for the sake of it. I think that he’s doing it to fund very explicitly good policies.”
Those policies include free buses, a rent freeze for regulated apartments, a pilot program of city-run grocery stores and extending universal child care to children as young as six weeks old. Paying for these programs would come from higher taxes, particularly on millionaires.
The capitalists for Mamdani have, as one might expect, unorthodox reasons for supporting their socialist standard-bearer. Some see him as a figure who can be influenced. Others think Albany, which holds taxing power, will curb his most idealistic proposals. His transportation, grocery and child-care plans appealed to some, though few liked his rent-freeze plans. A handful saw themselves reflected in his Muslim or Asian identity. Others said they just couldn’t vote for former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, his main rival in the June primary, who was accused of sexual harassment though never indicted.
A spokesman for the Mamdani campaign didn’t return requests for comment.
The Park Avenue set is no stranger to the left wing of American politics. Tom Wolfe coined the term “radical chic” in 1970, after attending a farcically out-of-touch fundraiser for the Black Panthers at Leonard Bernstein’s 13-room duplex overlooking Central Park.
In 2025, some one-percenters are willing to back a man who says billionaires shouldn’t exist. Widening income inequality, the sudden rightward shift of the federal government and even President Trump’s threat to deport Mamdani — a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Uganda — have led them to give the socialist a shot.
“His qualifying comments have identified the capitalist system as promoting income inequality. A lot of people in business agree with him on that,” said Wylde, who added that she was explaining her interactions with the candidate and not making an endorsement.
Mamdani’s Wall Street backers acknowledge they are in the minority. Vocal opponents, like billionaire investors Bill Ackman and Dan Loeb, have attacked him for pushing for his redistributionist policies and his previous comments — since walked back — that he would defund the police. Ackman has said on X that he is now backing Mayor Adams as the best chance to beat Mamdani.
For some, Mamdani is less palatable than other far-left candidates like Bernie Sanders or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, particularly inside Wall Street and big law firms, over his support of Palestine.
Part of Mamdani’s appeal, some backers say, came from ads where he sounded more like he would be wearing a red MAGA hat rather than carrying Mao’s red book of quotations. In one, taped inside a bodega, he vows to slash regulations for small businesses. In another, he promises to make permits easier for street food vendors to make Halal food cheaper.
“For immigrants coming to this country, these small businesses represent the single path for upward mobility that they have,” said Ahmed Haque, founder and chief executive of consulting firm Didactic Labs. He acknowledged that a tax on millionaires wouldn’t affect him right now.
About half of New York’s 200,000 or so small businesses are owned by immigrants, many of them from south or eastern Asia, according to Wylde and city data. “Overall, they are far more open to Mamdani’s message because the high costs of New York City are forcing them out of the city,” she said.
But Mamdani has made overtures to big business as well. And in New York, where few industries are as big as real estate, he has been trying to find a middle ground.
“He’s already acknowledged that the housing crisis is only going to be addressed if there’s an increase in private supply,” Wylde said. “So he’s not just talking about social or socialized housing solutions.”
Some on Wall Street have threatened to leave the city — and take their tax dollars with them. Others, such as Mark Gorton, CEO of investment firm Tower Research, who supports Mamdani’s free-buses plan, think that is just bluster.
“New York is a pretty special place. It’s very hard to go somewhere else,” he said. “And are you going to do it for an extra 2%?”
Most supporters, especially those who worked at banks or investment funds, declined to be named out of fear of getting blackballed. They said the current political environment is especially touchy because of accusations that Mamdani is antisemitic, which the candidate has strenuously denied. One executive at a large bank, who was born in India, was worried that she or her family could be detained if her support was publicly known.
But his supporters do exist.
Campaign-finance data show that Mamdani’s supporters include a trader at Jane Street Capital, a managing director at Deutsche Bank, and even a few employees at Goldman Sachs. Many are in their 20s and 30s, early in their careers, and relatively new to the city — broadly reflective of his successful get-out-the-vote operation.
Hueston, the VC, said he is interested in organizing financiers and business-community members behind Mamdani.
When a reporter asked why he decided to come out publicly in favor of someone who is broadly persona non grata in his industry, he pointed out a skull pendant he was wearing, with the words memento mori underneath, a reminder that one day his time will be up.
“I don’t fear death,” he said. “It’s important to live every single moment with truth and without fear.”
