Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images
- New York City mayoral favorite Zohran Mamdani has business leaders scared, and talking to the press.The man building a business advisory council for Mamdani said some CEOs have found agreement with him.Childcare has many execs nodding along, he said, but other issues take more time.
If you read the tabloids, the eve of a potential Zohran Mamdani mayorality has turned Billionaire's Row into 1975 Saigon, with everyone looking to hitch the last flight to Palm Beach.
To put it more bluntly, the city's wealthiest and most powerful business leaders have some qualms with Mamdani's socialist platform.
However, the story is not so simple, says Yasser Salem, a former McKinsey executive building a business council to advise Mamdani if he wins the mayoral election. Sure, the word socialism can cause some tension, Salem, the head of OneNYC, a pro-Mamdani PAC, said, but there are some surprising areas of overlap.
Some, like Jamie Dimon, have softened their message in public as they've gotten to know the candidate. Similarly, in conversations with more than 70 CEOs, Salem told Business Insider that some platform planks, such as universal childcare, are acceptable to many in the city's business community.
"Some of them have said from the beginning that they understand policies like free childcare as a way to lower the burden of worry, concern, and issues that their employees have that prevent them from being productive at work," Salem said. Others took more time, but the affordability crisis is unavoidable.
According to a recent study of public data released by his PAC, the average New York family spends over 25% of its income on care for just one child. The group proposes several public-private models for childcare, including some where the costs are shared by the government and the employer — an idea, Salem said, that has "widespread support."
Where the business elite still has concerns
Business leaders' main concerns aren't surprising: Mamdani's public safety plans will make the city less safe, and housing proposals will exacerbate the city's housing crisis.
However, even in housing, there are areas of agreement, Salem said.
Business leaders criticized Mamdani's plan to freeze the rent for rent-stabilized apartments, arguing it would worsen shortages, noting that Mayor de Blasio had tried rent freezes that failed to address the long-term crisis.
Still, both sides agree the long-term fix is boosting supply, Salem said.
The difference between the business community and Mamdani is in their time horizon. Mamdani's rent-freeze message could help lower rents now and satisfy voters, while his plans for zoning reform and building 200,000 "truly-affordable" apartments can solve the deeper problem over time.
"Are we solving for rent prices going down in four years? Are we solving for rent prices going down today?" said Salem. "Because if you're solving for rent prices going down today, supply is not going to do it."
As far as public safety, Salem said the announcement that Mamdani would seek to keep Jessica Tisch on as NYPD commissioner has helped alleviate fears that the city would become more dangerous under Mayor Mamdani.
Business leaders also wanted to know how Mamdani's new Department of Community Safety, which would deploy civilian mental health responders to subway stations and to answer some emergency calls, would work.
"For example, a McDonald's owner in a tough neighborhood gets somebody coming in causing trouble," Salem said. "Do they call 911 and get a mental health worker rather than a police officer?"
The answer, Salem told Business Insider, is that these changes will be "additive" and that mental health workers will join "alongside, not replacing the officers on the scene."
Surprisingly, he said, taxes don't come up as a big fear. CEOs told them they're willing to pay more if they "feel that New York is a better place to live as a result."
The announcement that Tisch was staying on helped alleviate some of the more intangible fears of the city's business elite, too, said Salem, such as Mamdani's inexperience or his ideological commitments to socialism, or to the pro-Palestine cause.
By appointing someone with extensive experience that's guaranteed to frustrate his most progressive supporters, Salem said he began to prove himself to some business leaders.
And Salem, who doesn't consider himself a socialist but instead a "pro-responsible capitalist," also said that he would try to get CEOs to focus on their specific disagreements with Mamdani's policies, rather than focusing on "labels" like socialism.
Salem tells CEOs that Mamdani is looking to expand the social safety net, not expropriate their wealth."He's not saying we're going to go from the corporate tax rate being 25% to being 75%," Salem said.
