Citadel founder Ken Griffin is escalating his feud with New York City’s mayor across the Atlantic, announcing Tuesday he will bypass City Hall and meet directly with Gov. Kathy Hochul to discuss the state’s economic climate.
Speaking at a global financial summit in Oslo, the 57-year-old hedge fund executive — worth an estimated $50.5 billion — blasted Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
The hard-left Hizzoner recently used Griffin’s $238 million Manhattan penthouse as the focal point in a high-profile campaign for a new luxury real estate tax.
“What upset me was the personal attack,” Griffin said Tuesday during a panel discussion. “I think the willingness of a mayor of New York to make this a policy debate a personal attack, just demonstrated a profound lack of judgment.”
Earlier this month Kathy Hochul proposed a new tax on second homes worth over $5 million that was backed by New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani. The so-called pied-à-terre tax is aimed at supporting Mamdani’s efforts to close New York City’s budget gap.
Miami-based hedge fund Citadel has objected to Mamdani’s attempt to use Griffin’s name in his push to tax individuals from outside the state who own New York City residences.
“I think the willingness of a mayor of New York to make this a policy debate a personal attack, just demonstrated a profound lack of judgment,” Griffin said during a Norges Bank Investment Management conference in Oslo.
The public rift ignited on Tax Day, April 15, when Mamdani, a democratic socialist, released a video outside 220 Central Park South on Billionaires’ Row. He explicitly singled out Griffin, who bought the sprawling penthouse in 2019
It centers on a proposed “pied-à-terre” tax, a French expression that translates literally as “foot on the ground,
The proposed levy targets high-end, secondary homes owned by non-residents, which proponents argue the surtax on properties valued over $5 million is essential to plug a looming city budget deficit — the chronic gap between what the municipal government spends and the tax revenue it actually collects.
Griffin, whose firm utilizes complex, high-speed trading strategies to generate massive returns for institutional investors, warned that aggressively taxing the ultra-rich could backfire on the city’s economic engine.
“Here’s the real question: Is New York going to put their fiscal house in order and run itself from a position of strong government that’s pro-business?” Griffin asked the Norwegian audience. “Why do Americans think we can do socialism?”
The chief of the $67 billion hedge fund added that he would meet with Hochul to talk about the future direction of New York.
Mamdani, a democratic socialist, last week filmed a video titled, “Happy Tax Day, New York. We’re taxing the rich,” in front of Griffin’s penthouse.
The rhetoric carries massive stakes for Midtown Manhattan’s commercial real estate market. Citadel is currently the driving force behind a $6 billion skyscraper redevelopment at 350 Park Ave.
Following Mamdani’s video, Citadel Chief Operating Officer Gerald Beeson fired off an internal memo warning employees that the firm’s New York expansion could be jeopardized by hostile local politics.
He wrote that principals and team members have paid nearly $2.3 billion in city and state taxes over the past five years.
In the email, Beeson called it “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.”
