The trend of major corporate giants relocating from New York is "growing stronger."
After recently announcing plans to impose a new "mansion tax" on New York's billionaires, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani this week engaged in a public war of words with Amazon.com founder and billionaire Jeff Bezos.
Bezos had previously questioned whether raising taxes on billionaires would genuinely benefit ordinary residents of New York City.
Mayor Mamdani recently unveiled an executive budget of approximately $124.7 billion and plans to implement a so-called "second-home tax," which is expected to generate $500 million in revenue for the city government to help address budget deficits.
In response to Mamdani's "tax the rich" proposal, Bezos stated in a media interview that federal income tax for low-income Americans should be "zero," as the government collects a negligible portion of its total revenue from this group regardless.
Bezos cited data showing that the top 1% of U.S. taxpayers contribute nearly 40% of federal income taxes, while the bottom 50% of earners contribute only about 3%. Bezos responded, "I think that share should be zero, not 3%."
Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk also expressed agreement with Bezos's suggestion. Their interaction on social media has sparked a new round of online speculation about whether Bezos might consider entering politics.
Bezos's comments come at a time when the debate over taxing billionaires and the ultra-wealthy in the United States is intensifying. In recent years, several states, including California, have begun exploring additional wealth taxes to fund social welfare programs and offset cuts in healthcare services.
As tensions between Mamdani and billionaires and Wall Street escalate, Dallas, Texas Mayor Eric Johnson mocked the New York mayor, stating that his adversarial stance is accelerating the corporate exodus to Dallas.
Johnson noted that the trend of major corporate giants leaving New York has "grown stronger" since Mamdani took office, adding, "Dallas is becoming a rapidly growing metropolis."
Mamdani recently filmed a video outside the luxury New York apartment of Citadel founder and CEO Ken Griffin, threatening to impose a new wealth tax on his second home. This move was swiftly criticized by Johnson.
"As mayor, I would never go to the doorstep of a business leader and say, 'We're going to figure out a way to tax you out of this city. You're not welcome here,'" Johnson said. "We don't view businesses and their leaders as the enemy."
One month ago, Johnson traveled to Manhattan for a two-day business attraction campaign. During the event, he led a delegation of Dallas business leaders to actively seek support from Wall Street heavyweights, including JPMorgan Chase and BlackRock.
Johnson claimed he could clearly sense that New York executives are growing increasingly weary—weary of soaring tax burdens and weary of the overt hostility from the New York City government and its mayor.
He also mentioned that JPMorgan Chase now employs more people in Texas than in New York State. According to data from the nonprofit organization Partnership for NYC, JPMorgan Chase employed 31,500 people in Texas in 2024, leading all U.S. states and surpassing New York State.
The data further shows that Texas surpassed New York State in the total number of financial industry employees in 2024. Texas had 519,000 financial sector workers, compared to 507,000 in New York State.
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