Mamdani fires back at Bezos over Queens teacher tax remark
Mayor Zohran Mamdani (left) and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
Getty Images (L) | CNBC(R)
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani took shots at Jeff Bezos on Wednesday. Amazon The founder and executive chairman questioned whether increasing taxes on billionaires would help working-class New Yorkers.
“You can double the taxes I pay and it won’t help the teacher in Queens at all. I promise you,” Bezos said in an interview with CNBC earlier Wednesday.
mamdani replied at X: “I know a few teachers at Queens who would like to disagree.”
Bezos, meanwhile, has pushed for tax cuts for low-income Americans.
He called for eliminating federal income taxes on the bottom half of earners, telling CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin on “Squawk Box” that the top 1% of taxpayers pay about 40% of all tax revenue, while the bottom half pay 3%.
“I don’t think it should be 3 percent,” Bezos said. “I think it should be zero.”
The adjusted gross income for the bottom half of taxpayers in 2023 was as follows: about $54,000 in 2023, according to the latest IRS statistics, according to the Tax Foundation, which is funded by conservative interests. Households in the top 1 percent brought home income of at least $676,000 that year.
Starting from September 2025 New York City teachers’ salaries According to the report, it was $68,902 for those with a bachelor’s degree and no previous teaching experience, and $77,455 for those with a master’s degree. NYC Public Schools.
These salaries are expected to increase to $71,314 and $80,166, respectively, in September 2026.
The spat between Bezos and Mamdani further sharpens the mayor’s message of taxing the wealthy, which is at the center of his effort to fund city services and address New York’s affordability crisis.
Mamdani and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, support a proposed tax on luxury second homes valued at $5 million or more after the mayor withdrew a broader proposal to raise property taxes on many homeowners.
Mamdani said the city’s initial tax revenue would be $500 million annually, but New York City’s comptroller warned that revenue could be lower, around $340 million to $380 million annually, if property owners change their behavior.
“I think the tax is a good thing for New York,” Bezos said in the interview.
