Chicago knows what happens when Ken Griffin turns on a city, now Mamdani may find out
There is no clearer example of what would happen if billionaire Ken Griffin attacked a city other than Chicago; This plan is currently being implemented in New York.
Citadel founder clashes with New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani Taxes targeting the ultra-wealthy and intensifying crime are reigniting the same tensions that drove him to pull his business and billions of dollars out of Chicago.
Griffin, whose value is approximately $50 billion according to Forbes, moved the firm’s global headquarters from Chicago to Miami. in 2022It’s a departure that shows how quickly jobs, investments and influence can follow the departure of a major financial player.
This move marked Griffin’s departure from the game. ChicagoHere he established one of the world’s most powerful hedge funds and market-making operations, which helped solidify the city’s status as a global financial centre.
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The Windy City, which served as Citadel’s home for more than 30 years, saw much of the firm’s workforce shift south; The office has grown from about 1,300 employees to a few hundred and is still shrinking.
“It wasn’t hard to ask people to go from Chicago to New York or Miami,” Griffin said at an Oct. 6 conference in New York.
“Chicago has been plagued by a range of issues for the last six or seven years,” he said, pointing to crime as one of the city’s most pressing problems and broader economic and political concerns weighing on employees’ willingness to stay.
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“I think the sad part of the story was that a lot of people who had made a life in Chicago were willing to walk away from that and move to Miami or somewhere else. new York“Given the challenges Illinois faces,” he added.
The result for Chicago has been the steady erosion of one of its key institutional pillars, with office space shrinking, employee displacement and the departure of a billionaire who once poured hundreds of millions into the city’s institutions and politics. It also meant fewer high-paying finance jobs downtown and the disappearance of a major civic and cultural philanthropist.
That dynamic is now resurfacing in New York, where Griffin is locked in an escalating feud with Mamdani, reminiscent of the early stages of his break with Chicago, where Lori Lightfoot was mayor and JB Pritzker was governor of Illinois.
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The dispute was sparked by Mamdani’s video, which went viral on April 15, promoting a proposed tax on second homes valued at more than $5 million. The hedge fund powerhouse is featured by name in the video, shot outside Griffin’s 24,000-square-foot penthouse on Central Park South, which was purchased for a record $238 million.
