For billionaire Ken Griffin, being targeted by New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani is “triggering the trauma I experienced in Chicago.”
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Griffin, the founder of Citadel and its sister market-making firm, Citadel Securities, ran both companies from Chicago before relocating to Miami following the pandemic due to frustrations with the leadership of the city and the state of Illinois.
Speaking at the Milken conference in Los Angeles on Tuesday, Griffin said that after Mamdani filmed a “tax-the-rich” video outside his penthouse apartment, it made his decision to choose Miami over New York “unquestionably” the right one.
“Mamdani has made it very clear, New York does not welcome success,” he said during a talk that generated several rounds of applause from the audience of financiers.
In an internal memo two weeks ago, Griffin’s right-hand man told Citadel employees that the targeting of their boss was “shameful,” but didn’t go so far as to say the manager would leave the city. Tuesday, Griffin called the video, which he watched three times, “creepy and weird” on first watch. He said it was “frightening” after subsequent views, citing extremists targeting politicians and business leaders like President Donald Trump at the recent White House Correspondents Dinner or the murder of healthcare executive Brian Thompson last year.
Citadel was set to redevelop an office building on Park Avenue, and Griffin said Tuesday the project’s future is “still a point of discussion” at his firm.
But Citadel, which is building a massive Miami tower to serve as its headquarters, revised its building plan “to make it bigger.” He told the audience he is doubling down on the city, where he believes state leadership is more supportive of the business and education policies he believes in.
He said he attended a welcome party for Palantir, the technology company that recently moved to the city, and hugged its leader, Alex Karp, and told him he’s happy he is there.
And Karp isn’t the only one who has come to Florida. Billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg, Sergey Brin, and Jeff Bezos have bought up property in the state.
Griffin said his friends from Chicago are the same friends in Miami, as they’ve moved out of the state to sunnier domains themselves.
“We get together and eat pizza and play cards,” he said.
