New York City Business Leaders Confront Economic Competition and Safety Concerns

0:00 Speaker 1 Well, the most powerful partnership in New York is the New York City Partnership. And Steve Phillip is the CEO. And Steve, you represent 300 of the most powerful companies in our city. And we’re all very concerned about what’s going on in our city and our state. And give us an update.

0:22 Speaker 2 Well, it’s been a busy week, to say the least. You know, earlier in this week, Morgan Stanley announced that they have 3,800 jobs scaling up in Texas and talking about Dallas. Every job that’s not in New York City is obviously a lost opportunity for us. So that’s pretty significant because we’ve seen in the last couple of months,

0:43 you know, Citadel, Goldman, JP Morgan, Apollo, all talking about the attraction in Texas. So bad for New York. got to fix that. Also this week, we saw a huge gift to Miami from Ken Griffin from Citadel, $ 3 billion.

1:02 And what I like to people is that when people have second headquarters or second offices, the philanthropy doesn’t double, it gets shared between different places. So You know, when Ken Griffin, who had a presence in New York City and a presence in Chicago, goes to Miami and gives that money, it’s a loss for us. And then, of course,

1:22 we have some news around the DSA and some stuff that The Post reported.

1:26 Speaker 1 Understood. Now, I understand you spoke to the mayor the other day. There was concerns that you had and your members had that they’re going to target certain executives with social media. And you had a good conversation, I understand, with the mayor.

1:44 Speaker 2 Yeah, I mean, look, the Post reported that there’s a deliberate effort of the DSA, so the Democratic Socialists, to single out individual CEOs by name and start disparaging campaigns about them. And, you know, it sounded like a very extraordinary step in a negative way. especially when you think about that, the assassination of the CEO of United Healthcare

2:14 for an environment with a lot of mental illness. And of course, there’s more political violence. So I reached out to the mayor, to his political director, to his comms director, and we all connected. And they said it wasn’t true.

2:31 And so you take him at his word. And you stay vigilant and watchful, but you got to take him at his word because nothing happened yet. Just the Post reported that that was his intention.

2:42 Speaker 1 Well, I’m happy that you got the truth out because, hey, some of us have to get the truth out versus just fake news and rumors.

2:51 Speaker 2 Yeah, I mean, look, I think that. Any time that you would single out an executive by name, it goes beyond the pale of disagreement about a policy. In many ways, you’d be inciting violence and actions that could be really harmful and scary. So, you know, I thought it was appropriate to reach out directly. And they said that there’s

3:13 no validity to that. So, you know, I’m going to take them at his word.

3:17 Speaker 1 I agree with you. Anything else you want to tell all New Yorkers?

3:21 Speaker 2 No, I think it’s been another busy week here. Every week is an eventful week. This one was particularly eventful, but we’ll see what the new week brings.

3:32 Speaker 1 Well, we have elections coming up in a few weeks, and I guess the truth is I don’t know what the pulse of things are, but all I want is common sense in our city and our state, and all I want is safety for our kids and our grandkids.

3:48 Speaker 2 I agree.

3:49 Speaker 1 I agree. Thank you so much. Thanks.