{"id":14281,"date":"2025-06-25T19:16:21","date_gmt":"2025-06-25T19:16:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/14281\/"},"modified":"2025-06-25T19:16:21","modified_gmt":"2025-06-25T19:16:21","slug":"these-billionaires-bet-big-on-the-nyc-mayoral-race-and-lost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/14281\/","title":{"rendered":"These Billionaires Bet Big on the NYC Mayoral Race \u2014 and Lost"},"content":{"rendered":"

For some of New York’s billionaires, it’s time for plan B.<\/p>\n

New York State Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani shocked the world on Tuesday when he became the presumptive Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City, defeating former Gov. Andrew Cuomo.<\/p>\n

Cuomo had enjoyed the support of big names in business and finance as he sought to fend off Mamdani, a Democratic socialist<\/a> who has proposed a rent freeze and higher taxes on the city’s wealthiest residents.<\/p>\n

Most of them donated to Fix the City, an outside nonprofit group that spent money on pro-Cuomo and anti-Mamdani ads. The group has reported receiving nearly $25 million in contributions.<\/p>\n

$8.3 million of that sum came from Michael Bloomberg, himself a former NYC mayor and the billionaire owner of Bloomberg LP.<\/p>\n

“I also know his strengths as a leader and manager,” Bloomberg said in a statement endorsing Cuomo. “Of all the candidates, Andrew has the skills our city needs to lead us forward.”<\/p>\n

Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman<\/a> and William Lauder, the executive chairman of The Est\u00e9e Lauder Companies, each gave $500,000 to the group. In the days leading up to the primary, Ackman wrote or reshared multiple posts on X that were critical of Mamdani.<\/p>\n

Media mogul Barry Diller, Netflix chairman Reed Hastings, and billionaire hedge fund manager Daniel Loeb<\/a> each donated $250,000.<\/p>\n

Alice Walton, a billionaire philanthropist from the family that founded Walmart<\/a>, contributed $100,000. Citadel CEO Ken Griffin<\/a> gave $50,000 to Sensible City, a separate anti-Mamdani group.<\/p>\n

Several of those same billionaires<\/a> \u2014 including Ackman, Loeb, and Griffin \u2014 supported President Donald Trump’s<\/a> 2024 campaign, a fact that Mamdani frequently emphasized on the campaign trail.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday morning, Ackman wrote on X<\/a> that he had a “great idea” for the city that he would share “as soon as I can.”<\/p>\n

“I was a bit depressed when I woke up this morning, but I am now optimistic,” Ackman wrote.<\/p>\n

As of Wednesday, Mamdani leads with 43.5% of the vote, compared to Cuomo’s 36.4%, with 93% of votes in. Because New York City uses a ranked-choice voting system, final results may take a week to determine, but Mamdani is expected to prevail. Cuomo conceded the primary Tuesday night.<\/p>\n

Cuomo could still run as a third-party candidate in the general election in November, but it is unclear if he will. On Tuesday, he told supporters that he was still considering his next move.<\/p>\n

Current mayor Eric Adams is running as an independent, while Curtis Sliwa is the Republican nominee. Jim Walden, an attorney, is also running as an independent.<\/p>\n

If Cuomo decides not to run in the general election, the billionaires who previously backed his campaign could theoretically support another one of these candidates.<\/p>\n

Adams’ reelection prospects are in question after Trump’s Justice Department moved to drop corruption charges against the mayor earlier this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For some of New York’s billionaires, it’s time for plan B. New York State Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani shocked…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":14282,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[14731,5229,14733,14734,4381,12088,14732,2451,5706,9950,5169,3957,5708,12176,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,13235,14735],"class_list":{"0":"post-14281","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-ackman","9":"tag-america","10":"tag-billionaire","11":"tag-bloomberg-lp","12":"tag-business-insider","13":"tag-campaign","14":"tag-candidate","15":"tag-city","16":"tag-cuomo","17":"tag-general-election","18":"tag-group","19":"tag-independent","20":"tag-mamdani","21":"tag-mayor","22":"tag-new-york","23":"tag-new-york-city","24":"tag-newyork","25":"tag-newyorkcity","26":"tag-ny","27":"tag-nyc","28":"tag-united-states","29":"tag-united-states-of-america","30":"tag-unitedstates","31":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","32":"tag-us","33":"tag-usa","34":"tag-vote","35":"tag-wednesday-morning"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114745611662877344","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14281\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}