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Citadel CEO Ken Griffin told CNBC his company has started shifting investment toward Miami in response to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani's viral tax day video calling out the hedge-fund chief.
"In reaction to New York, we filed a permit with the city of Miami. We've added several hundred thousand square feet of new space in our new building," the billionaire told CNBC's Sara Eisen in an exclusive interview at the Milken Institute Global Conference on Tuesday.
"We will add far more jobs in Miami over the next decade as an immediate and direct consequence of the mayor's poor decision here, with respect to his posting of that video," Griffin said.
He said Citadel's decision to move forward with a pricey redevelopment of a Park Avenue building — which the company says will cost more than $6 billion and help create more than 15,000 permanent jobs — has become "a real topic of debate."
But "we probably will go through [with] the building when it's all said and done," he added.
He also claimed Mamdani's video "put me in harm's way," referencing the 2024 assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson outside a midtown Manhattan hotel near his penthouse.
"I have no longstanding fights or issues or dynamics" with the new mayor, Griffin said, yet he "turned me into a political puppet."
"It was just in poor taste," Griffin said. "Really poor taste."
Mamdani's press secretary Joe Calvello, responding to Griffin's remarks at the Milken conference, told CNBC in a statement Wednesday that the mayor "wants all New Yorkers to succeed."
"That includes business owners and entrepreneurs who create good-paying jobs and make this city the economic engine of America. It also includes Ken Griffin, who is a major employer in our City and a powerful figure in our economy," Calvello said.
"That does not negate the fact, however, that our tax system is fundamentally broken. It rewards extreme wealth while working people are pushed to the brink," he said.
"The status quo is unsustainable and unjust. If we want this city to become a place that working people can afford, we need meaningful tax reform that includes the wealthiest New Yorkers contributing their fair share."
Mamdani, the democratic socialist who took office in January, shared a video on April 15 unveiling a new pied-à-terre tax — an annual fee on luxury properties worth more than $5 million whose owners don't live in the city full time.
The video was staged outside 220 Central Park South, where Griffin in 2019 bought a penthouse for roughly $238 million, breaking the record for the highest-price home ever sold in the U.S.
The pied-à-terre tax is "specifically designed for the richest of the rich — those who store their wealth in New York City real estate, but who don't actually live here," the mayor said in the video.
"But even so, they're able to reap the huge financial rewards of owning property in, dare I say, the greatest city in the world," Mamdani said.
"Most of the time, these units are sitting empty because, again, they don't actually live here," he said. "This is a fundamentally unfair system that hurts working New Yorkers. Now it's coming to an end."
Mamdani said the tax will raise at least $500 million "directly for the city."
Griffin told CNBC on Tuesday that when he first saw the video, "I couldn't believe what I was watching."
He said the pied-à-terre tax "discriminates against a narrow group of people."
"The only decision that we've made with no regrets the last few days is to expand the size of our office footprint in our new Miami headquarters," he said.
"You know what New York City needs, and what New York State needs right now, is a government who takes on the bloated, wasteful government that puts an incredible burden upon the lives of all New Yorkers," Griffin said.
"I don't think any city should be so arrogant as to believe that it is immune to economic realities and to the hard, cold fact that when people that drive success are told they're not welcome or invited, that they will leave," he said.