Crucial Quote
When reached for comment, Mamdani’s press office pointed to remarks the mayor made yesterday at a press conference after the judge’s ruling in the Staten Island lawsuit. “We are confident in our position,” Mamdani told reporters on Monday, after saying his office would “vigorously defend” the tax in court. “And that is a confidence coming from both the legality of the City’s actions as well as the importance of a surcharge on secondary homes worth more than $5 million, a surcharge that will help fund safer streets, that will help fund stronger schools, and it will help fund the city that New Yorkers deserve,” Mamdani added. Trump, on the other hand, sounded apocalyptic about the new tax, promising that “Financial, and then Social, RUIN, is a 100% certainty,” and later claiming he didn’t want the city to become a “filthy, crime ridden, decrepit place of mockery and scorn.”
Key Background
Mamdani announced the new tax in April, spreading the word with a video posted on social media filmed in front of the building housing billionaire Citadel CEO Ken Griffin’s penthouse on Midtown’s Billionaire’s Row. Griffin lives in Miami, but his apartment, which he bought for about $240 million in 2019, was the most expensive home ever sold in U.S. history. Trump raged at the tax plan in April, despite a previously cordial relationship with Mamdani. Griffin even suggested his plans for a $6 billion Citadel expansion in New York could be in jeopardy over the planned taxes. However, a later Forbes estimate found the planned taxes on Griffin’s penthouse would barely impact the billionaire’s fortune—costing him about $12.9 million. Forbes estimates Griffin’s net worth at $52 billion, making him the 35th-wealthiest person in the world as of Tuesday.
Further Reading
ForbesNew York’s Pied-À-Terre Tax Will Barely Dent Billionaires’ FortunesBy Giacomo Tognini
ForbesNew York’s Tax On Luxury Second Homes Slated For July—New Details RevealedBy Antonio Pequeño IV