New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani pushed back on comments from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos on Wednesday after the billionaire argued that higher taxes on wealthy Americans would do little to help working-class residents.
Bezos made the remarks during an appearance on CNBC with Andrew Ross Sorkin, where he was asked about progressive tax proposals championed by lawmakers such as Mamdani that would require top earners to pay a larger share in taxes than lower-income Americans.
“You can double the taxes I pay, and it’s not going to help that teacher in Queens,” Bezos said.
Mamdani, who has long campaigned for higher taxes on wealthy residents and corporations, quickly fired back in a social media post.
“I know a few teachers in Queens who would beg to differ,” he wrote.
Mamdani has repeatedly called for raising taxes on the city’s wealthiest residents and businesses to fund a slate of initiatives.
“People sometimes say I don’t pay taxes,” Bezos said during the interview. “That’s not true. I pay billions of dollars of taxes.”
“Again, if people want me to pay more billions, let’s have that debate, but don’t pretend that that’s going to solve the problem,” he continued.
Bezos also criticized politicians for “picking a villain and pointing fingers” instead of pursuing broader reforms to make the tax system more equitable.
“Some people talk about making the tax system more progressive,” he said. “How about we start by having the nurse in Queens not pay taxes?”
The clash comes weeks after Mamdani marked Tax Day by filming a video outside billionaire hedge fund manager Ken Griffin’s private residence while promoting a proposed tax on wealthy part-time homeowners in New York City.
“This is a fundamentally unfair system,” Mamdani said in the video. “When I ran for mayor, I said I was going to tax the rich. Well, today, we’re taxing the rich.”
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The proposed “pied-à-terre” tax would raise property taxes on second homes in New York City valued at more than $5 million.
Bezos said he did not oppose the idea itself, calling it “a fine thing for New York to do.”
“It’s a policy debate, and policy debates don’t have to be finger-pointing,” he added.
