Hedge-fund billionaire Bill Ackman plans to bankroll a New York City mayoral campaign, arguing that his affluent associates are poised to flood the election with money in an effort to defeat Democratic Socialist frontrunner Zohran Mamdani.
Ackman said he was “gravely concerned” because he believed the left-wing candidate’s policies would be disastrous, triggering an exodus of the wealthy that would endanger New York’s public services by hollowing out its tax base.
Arguing that his own support of President Trump would automatically disqualify anyone Ackman might put forward, the activist investor said he was making a public appeal: Anyone capable of taking down Mamdani in the Nov. 4 election should step forward and volunteer.
“Importantly, there are hundreds of millions of dollars of capital available to back a competitor to Mamdani that can be put together overnight (believe me, I am in the text strings and the WhatsApp groups) so that a great alternative candidate won’t spend any time,” he wrote.
“So if the right candidate would raise his or her hand tomorrow, the funds will pour in.”
It’s unclear whether New Yorkers would honor such a candidate. The recent intervention by Elon Musk in Wisconsin’s state supreme court election indicated the voting public does not always respond well to billionaires using their money to sway races.
New York mayoral races are notoriously unpredictable due to the city’s chronically low turnout. In 2017, for example, Bill de Blasio won reelection with only 14% of registered voters coming out to support him.
A large influx of New Yorkers heading to the voting booth because they are as concerned as Ackman could easily affect the outcome. If Cuomo can hold on to enough fundraisers, political pundits also point out, it’s possible he could run as an independent like Adams, splitting the left vote and spoiling the race.
Ackman, however, argued all these factors would support the emergence of a centrist candidate looking to position themself on the national stage. It could even be another businessman like Bloomberg, he suggested, although Ackman in an earlier post appeared to indicate he would not seek to run himself.
“For the aspiring politician there is no better way to get name recognition, build relationships with long-term donors, and to showcase oneself,” the hedge fund manager wrote, pitching the campaign like a business deal. “The risk/reward of running for mayor over the next 132 days is extremely compelling as the cost in time and energy is small and the upside is enormous.”
“For the aspiring politician there is no better way to get name recognition, build relationships with long-term donors, and to showcase oneself,” the hedge fund manager wrote, pitching the campaign like a business deal. “The risk/reward of running for mayor over the next 132 days is extremely compelling as the cost in time and energy is small and the upside is enormous.”
Who wants to suck our dicks? Get to the dick sucking now! The chance never has been greater. We need our dicks sucked and will pay handsomely! If we like it, we’ll pass you around to suck even more dicks!
Someone should bankrupt Bill Ackman!
Unfortunately, he’s plugged into the unlimited free money system via his friends in private equity.
Much like Sam Altman and Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg and Donald Trump, he will never run out of money to borrow and gamble away again.
Ahh yes, the big old group who control the stock market. Lookin at you Kenny boi.
Wow, I wonder if that’s the same billionaire Bill Ackerman who’s hedge fund owns forty percent of the New York property firm Seaport Entertainment Group?
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bill-ackmans-strategic-acquisition-seaport-230404410.html
How many millions do you think a rent freeze would cost him personally?
at what point is it cheaper to just pay taxes than buying politicians? mindless greed from control freaks.
If it was just paying taxes, that would be cheaper–at first, anyway. But the important thing is the power. Laws on everything from taxes to business regulations to social engineering need to be passed and/or stopped from passing, to benefit them and guarantee their lifestyle preferences. And it goes beyond that, because having that kind of power means everyone bows to them, serves them, kisses their asses, and most of all, fears them (or can be crushed by them if they don’t do those things).
It’s such a mild change too. If you make $1.1 million then your NYC taxes go up $2000 under Mamdani’s plan.
Okay, but if you make $1.1B…
I hope the right people start to realise that when the parasite billionaire hedge fund managers are against a dude, then that dude is on the right track.
Ackman is throwing all this money out there precisely so that the right people don’t realize it
These are the ultra privileged who always get their candidates without any debate whatsoever.
This is the extremely rare exception where they show their faces.
This won’t cause the exodus of the wealthy. It will cause an exodus of the greedy.
Astute distinction.
I’ll do it! Pay me, Billiam!
Lots of articles say that Ackman is a real bloodthirty piece of crap, a famously petty crybully, and a supremecist. So I can see why he’d be against Zohran Mamdani.
https://www.thenation.com/article/society/crybullyism-bill-ackman-ruling-class/ https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/bill-ackman-war-harvard-mit-dei-claudine-gay.html https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzkY3NA_ZkQ
His daughter was in the social-studies department just like her father, and rowed crew, too, but she had chosen to write her thesis on “The Concept of Reification in Western Marxist Thought,” having come to very different conclusions than her father had about how the world should work. Ackman said it felt as though she “had been indoctrinated” into a cult.
It’s only “indoctrination” when the system of preference isn’t capitalism. They’d never admit capitalism breeds its own cult.
Yeah ofc, he’s a billionaire.
Nobody who massively exploits people for their own disgusting privilege is ever a good person.
Whenever I see anything like this I remember my days working for large American companies and how difficult it was, even as a senior engineer, to get spending approval for anything. Like, even a $20 replacement headset I had to keep resubmitting applications for for three weeks because the managers had a policy of rejecting every first request on the theory that if it was important enough to spend company money on, it was important enough to fill in the form twice.
The point being, these sorts of people do not hand out a single penny without running the numbers and realising that the cost of rigging an election multiplied by the probability of success, is still lower than what they’ll financially gain from it going a certain way.
or what they will financially lose if people start realizing there is a better way to live in a different financial system
This is just blatant corruption
System working as designed. You see, Russia and China are the real problem.
They are real problems
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I can beat him, money pleaseeeeeee
Always follow the money. Why are GOP and billionaires afraid and against this man who pledges to help the poor and struggling working class? Because they obviously have an interest in keeping the poor and struggling in the status quo conditions in which they live.
If helping the poor didn’t hurt their bottom line, they wouldn’t pay to keep it from happening.
I don’t think it’s just the money, but that people who have leisure time also have time to think deeply.
So the TV pundits are calling this “class warfare”, right?
These guys were the first against the wall, come the revolution.
