Jamie Dimon on Zohran Mamdand
Jamie Dimon, just like several other New York City business leaders, criticized Mamdani after his unexpected win in the Democratic primary in June. In July, he attacked Zohran Mamdani’s policies — including free bus services and a rent freeze on rent-stabilized apartments — calling them “the same ideological mush that means nothing in the real world.”
However, as Mamdani’s popularity grew in the polls, Dimon and other business figures began to see value in engaging with him. The two eventually spoke over the phone as part of Mamdani’s outreach to the city’s elite, many of whom were spending millions to try to block his rise.
Jamie Dimon suggested the incoming New York City mayor could learn a lot from outgoing Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan. “I hope he calls up…this mayor because that’s the way you learn. You say, ‘How did you do it? What did you do?’” Dimon told CNN’s Erin Burnett on Wednesday during a live interview alongside Duggan, who is stepping down from office next year and running for governor of Michigan.
ALSO READ: JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon’s fiery response at employees’ work from home petition, says ‘not making fun of Zoom but…’The JPMorgan CEO said he left Mamdani a message on Wednesday and is willing to meet with the self-proclaimed democratic socialist. During a press conference on Wednesday, Mamdani said he looks forward to meeting with Dimon and argued universal agreement across “every single issue” should not be a prerequisite to have a dialogue. Dimon is among the business leaders whose companies invested in Detroit when it was in dire straits.
“This city was in deep trouble,” Dimon said of Detroit after the Great Recession. “This wasn’t like New York, which is kind of healthy.”
Jamie Dimon on Mamdani’s experience
Dimon, who recently completed the construction of JPMorgan’s new $3 billion New York headquarters, questioned those who had moved their businesses out of the city. “People have left New York City. You have seen hedge funds and certain banks,” Dimon said, adding: “And I think it’s a bad idea. You want to have a very competitive city.”
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Still, Dimon stressed that “New York has to compete” and that “no city has divine rights to success.” He indicated concerns about Mamdani’s inexperience and said he hoped the mayor-elect would grow into the job. “I see a lot of people in big jobs — including political jobs — they grow into it. They’re learning,” Dimon said. “I’ve seen a lot of people, they kind of swell into the job. They get worse. It all becomes about them.”
Dimon said he hoped Mamdani was “the good one.” When asked if he and Mamdani, a democratic socialist, could disagree on something as fundamental as capitalism, Dimon said the issues Mamdani wanted to tackle — such as income inequality — were not problems caused by capitalism itself.
“Those things, in my opinion, are not Democrat, they’re not Republican, they’re not flaws of capitalism, not flaws of socialism,” Dimon said. “They are bad policy, badly executed. So anyone who wants to fix those things, I’m all in.”
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