Home Depot cofounder Ken Langone doesn’t seem to be looking forward to next Tuesday.
Langone took a not-so-subtle shot at New York City mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani while speaking at Goldman Sachs’ 10,000 Small Businesses Conference in Washington, DC, on Wednesday.
“New York is on the verge of making a monumental mistake,” Langone, a Long Island native, said when asked about capitalism.
Many business leaders and billionaires have expressed concerns about Mamdani’s likely victory in the November 4 election, and some have poured hundreds of thousands into trying to stop him from moving into Gracie Mansion. (There is, however, a contingent of Wall Street employees throwing their money behind Mamdani.)
The 90-year-old called himself “an unabashed, devout lover of capitalism” minutes after his comments about New York; Mamdani describes himself as a Democratic Socialist. Langone is worth $9.3 billion, according to Forbes; Mamdani has previously said that billionaires shouldn’t exist. Representatives for Mamdani did not respond to Business Insider’s request for comment.
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon has also expressed doubts about the mayoral hopeful, but said he’d call Mamdani and offer to help should the current assemblyman become mayor.
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“It may be he asks for help in a way I refuse to do it. But maybe he’s actually looking for help in things we could do,” Dimon said earlier this month at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women conference. Still, the banking titan said he’s not convinced that Mamdani is “willing to change” his views.
Mamdani has held meetings and private calls with executives, including Dimon, and said in a recent debate that he “would be the mayor of this entire city” when asked how he’d balance the finance industry’s needs.
Though Langone criticized New York City’s potential electoral decision next week, he had choice words for those who take issue with the country overall.
“I have a simple recommendation for anyone who has problems with America,” Langone said. “Why don’t you leave?” He added that he’s “sick and tired of people bitching and complaining.”
Langone is a prominent conservative donor and said that he’s “sold on Trump” in an interview over the summer. He has, however, criticized some tariffs and had previously rolled back some of his support for the president after the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021.
