Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson taunted Zohran Mamdani over his war on Wall Street — claiming that the Big Apple mayor’s antagonism is accelerating a stampede of businesses down to the booming Texas city.
In an exclusive interview with The Post, the Republican mayor of Dallas — the fast-growing metropolis that financiers have branded “Y’all Street” — revealed that the migration of corporate titans out of New York is “only getting stronger” after the first six months of the Mamdani administration.
“Mayor Mamdani might be the best thing for Dallas business to ever happen to the city, other than our not having a state income tax,” Johnson quipped. “My message to Mayor Mamdani is, you’re wrong, but keep it coming.”
The 50-year-old, Harvard-educated Johnson likewise ripped Mamdani’s recent video stunt against Ken Griffin, the founder and CEO of the top hedge fund Citadel, in which he promised to slap fresh wealth taxes on second homes.
The Post reported earlier Friday that Griffin has been ghosting the mayor after he tried to set up a call amid the uproar.
“I would never, as the mayor, nor would anybody here, stand outside the residence of one of our corporate leaders and say: ‘We are going to try to figure out a way to tax you out of our city. You’re not welcome here,” he declared. “We don’t view businesses or their leaders as the enemy.”
Johnson’s comments came just over a month after a two-day pitch in Manhattan on April 13 and April 14, where he and a delegation of Dallas business leaders wooed Wall Street heavyweights, including JPMorgan Chase, BlackRock, and Fortress Investments.
The meetings capitalized on what Johnson described as growing fatigue among New York executives over soaring taxes and open hostility from City Hall and Albany.
“The mayor of Dallas, myself, the mayor of New York couldn’t be more diametrically opposed,” Johnson said. “He is an avowed socialist, I’m an avowed capitalist.”
Johnson accused Mamdani and Gov. Kathy Hochul of having “hostility towards business, and frankly, towards successful individuals,” which is actively driving top talent and entire companies out of the Empire State.
“The rhetoric out of New York continues to be increasingly anti-business, and very much anti-capitalist, and showing no signs of reversing itself,” he added.
Mamdani unveiled a $124.7 billion executive budget this week, closing a deficit in part with an expected $500 million from the so-called ‘pied a terre’ tax.
During his meeting with JPMorgan Chase, Johnson noted that the banking giant now boasts more employees in Texas than in New York.
More devastating blows to New York’s tax base and Mamdani’s tax-and-spend appear to be on the horizon, with Johnson saying “multiple companies” are in talks to relocate their operations to Texas.
“I would hope by this fall that we’d have some announcements to make of some significant relocations,” the Mayor of Dallas told The Post.
“There’s one in particular,” he added. “I think it will send the message loud and clear that we mean business, and that the financial services industry is definitely looking to hedge its bets, and is betting on Dallas and against New York.”
His sit-down came on the heels of CEO Jamie Dimon’s annual shareholder letter; the veteran Wall Street executive used his yearly missive to lash out at Mamdani’s plans for high taxes and increased red tape.
“They’re saying that’s not a coincidence, that’s just a business decision,” Johnson explained. “I think that we are going to see just a continuous exodus of jobs out of Manhattan, particularly financial services, including JPMorgan Chase, and others.”
A JPMorgan Chase spokesperson declined to comment, but company insiders said there are “no specific plans” to move more people from New York at present.
The Jamie Dimon-led lender now employs 31,000 in Texas — more than its 24,000 staffers in New York.
That’s despite the fact that the bank just opened a $3 billion Park Avenue headquarters designed by British superstar architect Norman Foster.
Goldman Sachs is also building an 800,000 square-foot $500 million “campus” in Dallas that will eventually house at least 5,000 staffers.
Credit: Source link
