New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani decided the best way to run America's financial capital was to publicly demonize the billionaire building a $6 billion tower in Midtown Manhattan — and Texas Governor Greg Abbott responded by rolling out the red carpet for every business tired of being treated like the enemy.
Because nothing says "economic development strategy" like chasing away the guy who paid $2.3 billion in city and state taxes over five years. Brilliant work, Mr. Mayor.
Here's what happened. Mamdani released a viral video on Tax Day targeting Citadel founder Ken Griffin's $238 million penthouse on Central Park South, using it as a prop to push his pied-à-terre tax on luxury second homes worth $5 million or more. Griffin called the video "creepy and weird" and said it raised "frightening" security concerns. Then he did what any rational human being would do — he announced Citadel would "double down" on its investments in Florida instead.
"Mamdani has made it very clear — New York does not welcome success," Griffin said at the Milken Institute Conference.
He's not wrong.
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Griffin had been planning a $6 billion redevelopment at 350 Park Avenue that would have created 6,000 construction jobs and over 15,000 permanent positions in Midtown Manhattan. He's directed $650 million in charitable gifts to New York institutions including Memorial Sloan Kettering, Success Academy, and the Robin Hood Foundation. And Mamdani's response to all of that generosity was to film a creepy little video outside the man's home.
So Texas came calling. Governor Abbott's spokesman Andrew Mahaleris didn't mince words: "Punitive policies that target successful job-creating entrepreneurs only accelerate the trend of companies choosing Texas." He touted the state's lack of income tax, lighter regulation, and pro-growth business environment. You know — the stuff that actually attracts employers instead of driving them away.
And here's the part that should terrify every New York politician with a functioning brain cell: Texas has already surpassed New York in financial-sector employment, with 519,000 workers compared to New York's 507,000. JPMorgan Chase now employs more people in Texas than in New York. That's not a trend line. That's a tombstone.
Griffin isn't the only one eyeing the exits. Apollo Global Management CEO Marc Rowan — whose firm manages $900 billion in assets and paid $1.28 billion in income taxes last year — is reportedly scouting locations in Florida or Texas for a major new hub with roughly 1,000 employees. All told, according to the New York Post, some 2,700 financial industry jobs and $168 million in annual tax revenue are now at risk.
Citadel's Chief Operating Officer Gerald Beeson put it perfectly, calling out "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."
Pro-business lobbyist James McMahon was even more colorful: "The golden goose of New York City is heading South in Spirit Airlines."
And Zilvinas Silenas, president of the Empire Center for Public Policy, delivered the kill shot: "Without finance jobs Manhattan is a very expensive mall."
Mamdani's office issued the standard progressive response — he "wants all New Yorkers to succeed" and the tax system is "fundamentally broken." Meanwhile, 50% of New York City's income tax comes from just 1% of taxpayers, and 114,000 New Yorkers had already fled before Mamdani even took office.
Griffin relocated Citadel from Chicago to Miami back in 2022 after getting fed up with similar progressive nonsense there. Now he's planning a 54-story supertall tower on Miami's Biscayne Bay. As he told the Milken crowd: "When we moved from Chicago, there was a debate between New York and Miami... It's unquestionably true that we made the right choice."
We used to call it the U-Haul Index — tracking which states people are fleeing and where they're headed. Now we don't even need a moving truck. The governors of red states are just live-tweeting their recruitment pitches while blue-state politicians set their own economies on fire.
Texas doesn't have to do anything fancy. They just have to not be New York.