Billionaire Bill Ackman Promises ‘Hundreds of Millions of Dollars’ to Anyone Willing to Challenge Mamdani For NYC Mayor

AP Photo/Richard Drew

Billionaire Bill Ackman has vowed to back a viable challenger to New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani to the tune of “hundreds of millions of dollars.”

Mamdani, a Democratic socialist, shocked the country with his lopsided win over former governor Andrew Cuomo in New York City’s Democratic primary. He’ll currently set compete against current Mayor Eric Adams and Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa in the general election. In the days following Mamdani’s stunning upset, Ackman used social media to sound the alarm on the future of New York City.

Half past midnight on Thursday morning, Ackman posted a tweet detailing his concerns regarding the potential of Mamdani running the city:

A mayor who disrespects the NYPD and has called for their defunding will get less effective policing, and Bratton’s ‘broken window theory’ will operate in reverse. A mayor who condones hate speech will incentivize more hate speech and violence. Words matter, and yes, they can inspire people to kill as we have recently tragically seen in our country and around the world.

New York City under Mamdani is about to become much more dangerous and economically unviable. Unlike our Federal government, NYC cannot print money, and this Federal Government won’t bail NYC out if things go bad. In fact, Mamdani would be a windfall for the Republican Party as NY becomes another failed major city run by Democrats alongside Seattle, Chicago, LA, and SF et al as Senator Fetterman so eloquently stated today, “I’d describe it as Christmas in July for the GOP.”

Further down the post, Ackman announced that, along with a host of other donors, he would provided extraordinary financial to an candidate who can realistically challenge the 33-year-old.

Importantly, there are hundreds of million of dollars of capital available to back a competitor to Mamdani that can be put together overnight (believe me, I am in the text strings and the WhatsApp groups) so that a great alternative candidate won’t spend any time raising funds.

So, if the right candidate would raise his or her hand tomorrow, the funds will pour in. I am sure that Mike Bloomberg will share his how-to-win-the-mayoralty IP and deliver his entire election apparatus and system to the aspiring candidate so that the candidate can focus all of his or her energy on the campaign.

One unfortunate fact, as far as I understand, is that the candidate will have to be a write-in as I believe that none of the current candidates established a nominating committee if they were to withdraw, which means that no one can take their spot on the ballot. This is such an important election, however, that I believe the write-in requirement could actually turn into an important call to action that brings people in throngs to the polls. It therefore won’t be the game stopper it would normally be in a typical election.

Ackman then called upon his followers to “crowdsource” names and “do a poll.”

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