Vornado Realty Trust CEO compared the ‘tax the rich’ slogan to racial slurs.
The billionaires Steve Roth and Ken Griffin ban together in their stance against Mayor Mamdani’s push for a more progressive tax system. They specifically had concerns how a progressive tax system would negatively impact how society views the ultra-wealthy.
Specifically, could the perspective of billionaires being compared to as greedy due to second, third, and fourth homes perpetrated the perspective of billionaires having no contribution to society?
As reported on by Politico, “Roth, CEO of Vornado Realty Trust, thinks the ultra-rich should be ‘praised and thanked’ and said calls to tax them more are akin to racial slurs.”
Roth went on to explain that the phrase, when said by politicians to incite a sort of hatred for the wealthy, was harmful to society and similar to racial slurs.
Recent NY legislation
Mayor Mamdani has taken to social media to gain traction on a pied-a-terre tax. To do this, he publicly condemned billionaire Ken Griffin’s second home valued at $238 million. Mamdani went further and implied this kind of wealth could be irresponsible.
The CEO of the hedge fund Citadel found the video offensive and went further to suggest that they would pause the building of the Midtown Manhattan office tower. Roth took to social media following this incident, “We are all shocked that our young mayor would pull this stunt in front of Ken’s home and single him out for ridicule.”
The construction will continue but both Roth and Griffin are pushing for public apologies. Which is a sentiment that Mamdani’s office has refused to agree to.
To get the public to agree to a tax on second homes, Mamdani pushed for a more public condemnation of extreme wealth. However, billionaires like Griffin are pushing that this could promote a threat upon their lives potentially.
The real fears
Griffin in particular voiced concerns how such rhetoric such as the negativity of the wealthy could actually be pushing for political violence.
Roth in agreement to this, went on to say the one percent were at the top of the American pyramid for a reason thus the ultra wealthy are not the “enemies.”
Long-standing issues
During Mamdani’s campaign Roth donated heavily to Andrew Cuomo, Mamdani’s opposition. One of the many reasons being Mamdani’s unfriendliness of billionaires.
Roth does have some tension with New York’s mayor Mamdani, however these could be more rooted and complex issues.
