Bezos Backs NYC $5 Million Second-Home Tax as He Blasts Mamdani's Rich-Tax Push

6 articles · Updated · POLITICO · May 20

Jeff Bezos said New York’s planned pied-à-terre surcharge on second homes worth more than $5 million is “a fine thing,” even though his own city properties would likely be taxed.
On CNBC, Bezos sharply criticized Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s broader approach, calling it wrong to film a tax-promotion video outside Ken Griffin’s penthouse and rejectively cast the hedge-fund billionaire as a villain.
Bezos also argued higher income taxes on the wealthy would not fix city services, citing New York’s roughly $44,000 per-student school spending and proposing instead to eliminate taxes for lower earners such as a Queens nurse making $75,000.
Mamdani answered on X that teachers in Queens “would beg to differ,” while the clash lands amid business backlash over his Griffin video and Griffin’s threat to scrap a $6 billion office project.
The exchange revives a long-running Queens thread in Bezos’ New York politics: Amazon abandoned its Long Island City headquarters in 2019 after opposition to $3 billion in subsidies.

Will New York's tax on luxury second homes fix its budget, or just turn billionaires into landlords?

Why is Jeff Bezos supporting a 'tax the rich' plan that could directly affect his own real estate?