Photo: Carina Johansen/Bloomberg/Getty Images

It’s safe to say Ken Griffin is not a big Zohran Mamdani fan.

In an interview on Tuesday, the hedge-fund titan said that after the mayor negatively name-checked him in a recent video, he is having second thoughts about building a new tower in New York City and has expanded his company’s operations in Miami. Griffin is the CEO of Citadel LLC and worth a cool $50.2 billion, per Forbes.

During the interview, which took place at the Milken Institute Global Conference, CNBC anchor and Mamdani skeptic Sara Eisen asked Griffin for his reaction to Mamdani’s video in which the mayor, touting New York’s proposed pied-à-terre tax, strode along Billionaires’ Row in Manhattan and pointed at 220 Central Park South, where Griffin owns property. “This is an annual fee on luxury properties worth more than $5 million whose owners do not live full time in the city,” Mamdani said. “Like for this penthouse, which hedge-fund CEO Ken Griffin bought for $238 million.” (Griffin’s purchase was the most expensive in New York City real-estate history.)

Eisen began with a leading question. “I wanted to do this interview outside your apartment, but I thought it would be creepy and weird,” she said to laughter. “So how did you feel about the mayor’s little video?”

Ken Griffin at Milken:

“How did you feel about the Mayor’s little video?”

“It was creepy and weird.” pic.twitter.com/PdzoHf5v2C

— Wall Street Rollup (@WallStRollup) May 5, 2026

Ken Griffin at Milken:

“What the mayor of New York has made clear to my partners, and principally my New York partners, is that we need to double down on our bet in Miami” https://t.co/b3ts4TERDz pic.twitter.com/RCVEdqyHZc

— Wall Street Rollup (@WallStRollup) May 5, 2026

“It was creepy and weird,” Griffin responded to more laughter.

Griffin said he had watched the video three times and it had gone in his mind from merely creepy to “frightening,” citing 2024’s murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson a few blocks from the building. “Anything that creates an agitation in the extremist on either side of the aisle is a frightening dynamic,” he said.

A major donor to the Republican Party, Griffin has a history of bashing liberal leadership. In 2022, he moved Citadel headquarters from Chicago to Miami after 30 years over concerns about safety, crime, and corruption. He later called Chicago a “failed city-state.”

In the Tuesday interview, Griffin said Mamdani’s video had inspired him to expand Citadel’s presence in Miami even further, and he is debating whether to go forward with a planned tower in New York City at 350 Park Avenue, though he said he would “probably” still do so.

Ken Griffin at Milken:

“What the mayor of New York has made clear to my partners, and principally my New York partners, is that we need to double down on our bet in Miami” https://t.co/b3ts4TERDz pic.twitter.com/RCVEdqyHZc

— Wall Street Rollup (@WallStRollup) May 5, 2026

“When we moved from Chicago, there was a debate between New York and Miami,” Griffin said. “It’s unquestionably true that we made the right choice. I’ll leave it at that. And now, what the mayor of New York has made clear to my partners, and principally my New York partners, is that we need to double down on our bet in Miami because we want to be in a state that embraces business, that embraces education, that embraces personal freedom and liberty, and that embraces people having an opportunity to live the American dream.”

Griffin’s hesitation over the new building had been previewed in an email from Citadel COO Gerald Beeson to employees two weeks ago, in which he castigated Mamdani, pointed to Griffin’s $650 million in donations to city charities, and asserted that Citadel’s “principals and team members (including nonresidents) have paid nearly $2.3 billion dollars in city and state taxes.”

“It is shameful that he used Ken’s name as the example of those who supposedly aren’t carrying their fair share of the burdens associated with New York City’s often costly and wasteful spending,” Beeson said. “In doing so, the mayor has once again manifested the ignorance and disdain of the elite political class towards those who have been consistently committed to building one of the greatest cities in the world.”

Mamdani has not commented further on Griffin in recent days, but other billionaires have vented their spleen at the mayor. In an earnings call on Tuesday Vornado CEO Steven Roth went off, per the New York Times.

“I must say that I consider the phrase ‘tax the rich’ — quote, tax the rich — when spit out with anger and contempt by politicians both here and across the country, to be just as hateful as some disgusting racial slurs and even the phrase, ‘from the river to the sea,’” Roth said. He also criticized Mamdani’s singling out of Griffin, calling it an “ugly, unnecessary video stunt.”

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