New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is calling out DoorDash after it was revealed that the food delivery company is offering to buy Instacart for $17 billion.

“Just last month, DoorDash couldn’t seem to find the money to pay their deliveristas — until our administration forced them to give back $131M+ in stolen wages and penalties,” Mamdani, 35, wrote in a Thursday, October 29, X post, referring to the company’s settlement with New York City’s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP) over compliance with pay rules for its delivery workers.

“This week, they’ve managed to find $17 billion to acquire one of their main competitors,” the mayor continued. “Corporate consolidation means higher prices, harsher exploitation, and greater economic inequality for New Yorkers. We’ve stood up to these giants before. That doesn’t stop now.”

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However, DoorDash framed the deal differently, as cofounder and CEO Tony Xu said it may help local grocers compete with larger ones like Walmart, Costco, and Amazon, according to the Associated Press.

“Over the past decade or even two decades, what you see is the largest companies are only eating more and more of the pie,” Xu said on a conference call with investors Thursday. “Why is that? It’s because they’ve invested aggressively into capabilities like a modern technology stack, like fast delivery, like new fulfillment models.”

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“That’s what this combination is really about, where DoorDash and Instacart can give every retailer a fighting chance at competing in the modern-day era,” Xu further insisted.

Consumers now pay $9.99 per month for separate DashPass and Instacart+ memberships, but if the acquisition happens, they would pay one combined fee.

Since DoorDash expanded from restaurant delivery into grocery, Instacart has taken a hit: It accounted for 26 percent of spending on U.S. delivery platforms five years ago, and now it has dipped to 18 percent, according to AP, which cited Consumer Edge, a market research company. As for DoorDash, its share rose from 44 percent to 59 percent in that same period.

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