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JPMorgan Chase Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon put New York City’s new progressive mayor, Zohran Mamdani, on notice, telling the self-described ideologue that city governance is about lower crime and economic survival, not empty “morality” slogans.
Following a high-stakes face-to-face meeting, the Wall Street titan openly criticized far-left tax talking points like “fair share” and warned that treating wealth creators as political punching bags is actively destroying the city’s talent pool.
“Every city has to compete. And they have to compete at every level – arts, science, schools, that is what it is. I’m not inventing that, he can be an ideologue, he has to compete, too,” Dimon said Thursday in a Bloomberg TV interview.
“And we’ll see: will he learn that he’s got to make this city a place where people want to grow and build and live and have families and work?” he continued. “And he’s gotta compete with Shanghai and Hong Kong and Singapore and Nashville, and people vote with their feet. So it isn’t this morality thing that people talk about. It’s like, are you building a great city with lower crime and stuff like that?”
MAMDANI’S WALL STREET COURTSHIP SPARKS CRITICISM OF ANTI-BILLIONAIRE AGENDA
On Monday, Dimon and Mamdani met in person at the bank’s new headquarters in Manhattan, as the democratic socialist mayor intensifies outreach to Wall Street leaders following backlash over proposals to raise taxes on wealthy New Yorkers.
The meeting was “constructive and the tone was friendly,” a JPMorgan spokesperson told Reuters. According to City Hall, the pair discussed reducing government waste, cutting red tape tied to development projects and expanding public-private partnerships. JPMorgan said the conversation also focused on New York City’s competitiveness.
“I don’t care what he says. What does he do? I will judge that,” Dimon said. “And so what actually happens, because you can talk about morality and ideology all you want, but if things don’t get better, you didn’t do a good job… And so, hopefully, he’ll learn. I want him to do a good job. I’m not against him.”
The CEO also expanded on Mamdani’s controversial wealth tax proposals: “I don’t think… people making under a certain amount [should] pay taxes at all. I would agree with that, but when they say, ‘fair share,’ what do they mean? They should give a number.”
Dimon added that New York City’s existing tax landscape “already” makes the Big Apple uncompetitive, with just 26,000 JPMorgan employees based there today versus 33,000 in Texas.
“The Dallas mayor calls up all the time saying, ‘What can I do to help you? I have land over here,’ you know, and that is pro-business and pro-people-love-living there,” he said.
“New York’s a wonderful place too, but… [people] think that somehow being anti-business is going to help a city. It’s not.”
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FOX Business’ Bradford Betz contributed to this report.
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