Mamdani said he would add taxes on high earners in the city and increase the corporate tax rate.
Most big business executives, such as President Donald Trump donor Bill Ackman, had backed former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who conceded to Mamdani on Tuesday. Mamdani’s win shocked many political observers across the spectrum.
Semafor reported that Cuomo’s biggest backers “hinted in fluid, panicked conversations” that they’d back Adams, who is running as an independent in November after dropping out of the Democratic primary in April.
Adams had rarely campaigned while he dealt with his corruption case, which was allegedly dropped in an alleged quid pro quo by the Trump administration that absolved Adams of the charges if he followed the administration’s immigration demands.
Also, in a March poll, only 20% of voters approved of Adams’s performance, most likely because of his involvement with Trump and the charges.
Adams will now take the centrist lane in the November mayoral election. Independent Jim Walden and Republican Curtis Sliwa are also running.
“There is going to be overwhelming support in the business community to rally around Adams,” Richard Farley, a partner at Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel, told Semafor, adding he’s organizing a fundraiser for the mayor and has been speaking with some of Cuomo’s biggest donors. “This will be a street fight all the way to November.”
Cuomo represented an “uninspiring, bullying boomer Dad who couldn’t inspire people to leave a burning building and thought he could run an air campaign,” Farley said. “But they don’t want socialism, either.”
Kathy Wylde, CEO of Partnership for New York City, also told Semafor that the business community is “struggling to understand the implications of Mamdani’s victory.”
His focus on affordability tapped into “the financial insecurity young people feel and their anger that the established political class has done nothing to fix it. It’s not an endorsement of socialism but rather a rejection of the status quo, which threatens to bring on the kind of political instability that business hates.”
In a thread on X, Ackman said he has a “great idea on NYC. I will share it as soon as I can.”
He said “we” are looking into legal issues concerning “the potential for another candidate to run now.”
Ackman rejected a New York Post article saying he would endorse Adams. The story said Ackman believed all candidates should drop out except Adams. “The below story is totally false. I like [Adams] and may ultimately support and endorse him, but I have not yet made any decision about whom to support for mayor of NYC,” he said.
New York-based Democratic strategist Max Burns told the Washington Examiner he wasn’t shocked by the renewed support for Adams. “It’s no surprise that Eric Adams is the No. 1 super friend of New York’s business elites. Regular New Yorkers have watched him put the rich first since Day One of his mayorship,” he said.
He thinks part of the support is due to the initial shock of Mamdani winning but that “cooler heads will prevail.”
TRUMP SAYS DEMOCRATS ‘CROSSED THE LINE’ AFTER ‘LUNATIC’ MAMDANI WINS NYC MAYORAL PRIMARY
Adams took his opening shot at Mamdani on Wednesday, calling him a “snake oil salesman.”
“He is a snake oil salesman. He will say and do anything to get elected,” Adams said of Mamdani. “Think about this for a moment: He wants to raise taxes on the 1% of New Yorkers, high-income earners. As the mayor, you don’t have the authority to do that. You know who has the authority to do that? An assemblyman, which he is. He wants to do free buses; he could have done it as an assemblyman. He doesn’t understand the power of government.”
