Wealthy New Yorkers are feverishly calling their financial advisers after Zohran Mamdani’s blowout mayoral win, desperately looking to protect their investments, their paychecks – and even themselves, On The Money has learned.
The fatcat freakout began late Tuesday as the election was called for Mamdani – and is expected to last for days as rich New Yorkers assess how they might escape the financial chaos that Mamdani could unleash – even if it means leaving the city altogether.
“The calls are coming in,” said one financial adviser at Morgan Stanley told The Post, just hours after the 34-year-old lefty assemblyman and former rapper was named mayor-elect – easily defeating former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and GOP challenger Curtis Sliwa.
“People are really worried,” the advisor added. “Many are telling me they’re looking to move everywhere from Florida to Connecticut.”
A key problem for those eyeing the exits, according to advisers, is that options are limited.
Clients who need to work in the city could move to Westchester or Long Island where it’s safer, although their tax bills might not decline much. While they won’t be hit with the millionaires levy, property taxes in the New York burbs are among the highest in the nation.
Ditto for New Jersey, which also has some of the highest utility bills in the country because its Democratic governor Phil Murphy is obsessed with windmills and green energy. Democrat Mikie Sherrill’s victory over Jack Ciattarelli means the Murphy agenda will remain intact.
Connecticut offers lower taxes (full disclosure: this reporter owns property in the state) but housing stock is limited so prices are expected to soar.
There’s always Florida, which has no income tax and has a government that puts public safety high on its agenda. Then again, you have to move there and not every job, even for the rich, is conducive to such arrangements.
“Some of my big-money clients will wait this out rather than run immediately to Florida because they hate the hot weather,” another financial adviser said.
Such heightened financial apprehension is usually reserved for stock market corrections and crashes like what occurred when President Trump unleashed his massive “liberation day” tariffs, or during the 2008 banking collapse.
With Mamdani as mayor, wealthy New Yorkers are fearing something just as worrisome: An inexperienced leftist ideologue who sees the rich as his piggy bank to finance the vast social welfare program he envisions.
More big bucks will be needed from the so-called 1% – New Yorkers who are already paying some of the highest taxes in the country – to fund Mamdani’s government-run groceries, rent freezes, and free transportation. He’s promising a “millionaire’s tax” to pay for these things and other levies.
In addition to high taxes, real estate prices are expected to swoon as more people leave and the quality of life suffers. That’s while he defunds the police and replaces them with social workers to achieve his radical “social justice” goals that view criminality as a just rebellion against racism.
“There were a lot of my clients who were truly on the fence about leaving who say they’re now ready to go with this guy running things,” another adviser said.
Yet for all the wealthy people preparing to call U-Haul, I found a few examples of others staying put – wagering that their Marxist mayor is nothing more than a neophyte with a thin resume who won’t get anything done.
If Mamdani tries, some are betting he will be thwarted by a more moderate New York state legislature and a Democratic governor In Kathy Hochul, since both are needed to approve any tax increases and swaths of Mamdani’s harebrained agenda.
As one billionaire hedge fund manager put it: “Why leave? This guy’s a punk.”
That might be wishful thinking, according to several financial advisers who believe Mamdani could achieve most if not all of his policy agenda. They point to the leftward tilt of the state legislature. Plus Hochul is among the weakest moderates in the Democratic Party. She’s up for re-election next year and faces a primary challenge from a progressive in the Mamdani mold.
Consider Cuomo’s last term-and-a-half as governor, in which he lurched leftward to appease the increasingly powerful progressive wing of his party, raising taxes and passing so-called “bail reform” measures that weakened public safety.
That’s the same Cuomo who attacked Mamdani as an out-of-touch “socialist” only to get shellacked by him first in the Democratic Primary and, of course, on Tuesday night.
