Billionaire investor Bill Ackman is staying put in his longtime home of New York City.
But he would prefer it if anti-billionaire NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani cut his heated rhetoric against Wall Street titans.
“So I don’t want to move out of New York City. But I certainly don’t want the mayor to encourage other people to move out. We don’t want to lose Ken Griffin and Citadel,” Pershing Square’s Ackman said on Yahoo Finance’s Opening Bid (video above).
“The economics of New York City are such that 1% of the population pays something approaching, I think the number is 35%, 40% of the total tax revenue of the city,” he said. “And the top 10% might be 75% of the total revenue. So the business model of New York City works in large part because it’s the finance capital of the world, and a lot of very talented finance people, hedge funds, etc., want to locate here.”
Mamdani released a viral video on tax day singling out hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin as the “poster boy” for a proposed pied-à-terre tax.
Filming directly outside Griffin’s $238 million Central Park penthouse, Mamdani argued that the city’s wealthiest part-time residents are not “carrying their fair share” of the tax burden. In turn, they should pay an annual fee on luxury properties worth over $5 million to help fund expanded childcare and close the city’s budget deficit.
The move prompted a fierce backlash from Griffin, who called the video a “personal attack” and a “profound lack of judgment.” He threatened to pull a $6 billion development project in midtown Manhattan that could create thousands of construction jobs.
“[Griffin] is a major job creator of some of the highest-paid jobs in the city,” Ackman said. “He spent a lot of money here. He’s given away a lot of money here … hospitals, museums, cultural institutions. You know, that’s the kind of person who brings value to New York, and we don’t want to scare them away.”
“And I think the mayor’s policies are misguided,” he added. “I hear he doesn’t like billionaires. OK. But you know what? Because of billionaires, New York City can offer the poorest citizens a much better way of life and a much better city … I mean, look at California. They’re sending billionaires to Austin, Texas, and Miami with a very misguided tax policy.”
Pershing Square Capital Management founder and CEO Bill Ackman speaks at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills, Calif., on May 6, 2025. (Patrick T. Fallon / AFP) · PATRICK T. FALLON via Getty Images
Ackman just had another big moment in the Big Apple.
The dual IPO of asset manager Pershing Square and his closed-end fund Pershing Square USA is slated to haul in $5 billion, toward the low end of his original $5 billion to $10 billion target. Institutional investors are covering 85% of the deal.