Steven Roth, chairman and CEO of Vornado Realty Trust—one of New York City’s largest landlords and taxpayers—used his company’s Q1 2026 earnings call on Tuesday to deliver a six-minute rebuke of Mayor Zohran Mamdani, calling his viral “tax the rich” video “irresponsible and dangerous” and comparing the phrase itself to hate speech.
The comments from both Roth and Griffin are the turning point of a serious clash between City Hall and New York’s business establishment, with the CEOs personally calling out the new mayor and expressing distaste with the pointed remark at Griffin in his ongoing effort to tax the rich.
On Tax Day, Mamdani stood outside 220 Central Park South, where Griffin owns a penthouse he bought for $238 million, and announced the city’s first pied-à-terre tax on luxury second homes above $5 million.
Vornado built the building which houses Griffin’s apartment, and holds a 36% stake in the joint venture with Griffin and the Rudin family to build a $6 billion, 62-story super-tall office tower at 350 Park Avenue, a project now hanging in the balance, which was referenced not only by Roth but Griffin’s COO at Citadel, Gerald Beeson.
On that building specifically, Vornado faces a mid-July deadline to commit to the venture or sell its stake to Griffin’s company. “Citadel has to be committed,” Roth said in the call, but added Vornado is expected to go “all in” on the project.
Roth told investors Vornado will pay approximately $560 million in real estate taxes to New York City this year, a figure he said places the company in the top three taxpayers in the city: “And that doesn’t begin to count the personal income taxes that I and our Vornado population pay to the city and state of New York. We work our a–es off.”
Roth compared the phrase “tax the rich,” when deployed with contempt by politicians, to “some disgusting racial slurs, and even the phrase ‘from the river to the sea.’” He argued the wealthiest 1% pay 50% of the city’s income taxes and “should be praised and thanked.”
“He seems to have forgotten that the CEO of another American company was assassinated just blocks from where I live in New York,” he said on CNBC. At the Milken Conference he called the video “creepy and weird” and “frightening.” At the Norges Bank conference in Oslo, he called it “a profound lack of judgment.”
Griffin said at Milken the video confirmed his decision to “double down” on Miami, where he’s building a 54-story headquarters.
“We will add far more jobs in Miami over the next decade as an immediate and direct consequence of the mayor’s poor decision,” he said. (Griffin moved Citadel’s headquarters due to rising crime. He also had a public feud with Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and his proposed graduated income tax).
In a statement to Fortune, Press Secretary Joe Calvello acknowledged Griffin as “a major employer in our City and a powerful figure in our economy.” He then added:”Mayor Mamdani 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.”
“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. The status quo is unsustainable and unjust,” the statement continued. “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.”
