Here’s How Much New York City Mayoral Candidate Zohran Mamdani Is Worth

Forbes

Despite his own privileged path to power, or perhaps because of it, the son of a Columbia University professor and a movie director is campaigning as a socialist intent on redistributing New York’s wealth.  Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kylemullins/2025/06/24/heres-how-much-new-york-city-mayoral-candidate-zohran-mamdani-is-worth/  Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1  Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:  https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript  Stay Connected Forbes newsletters: https://newsletters.editorial.forbes.com Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes More From Forbes:  http://forbes.com  Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success.

Transcript

00:00Today on Forbes, here's how much New York City mayoral candidate Zoran Mamdani is worth.

00:07At a panel in Harlem in February, New York State Assembly member Zoran Mamdani discussed a piece

00:14of proposed legislation that would strip Columbia University of various tax breaks and redirect the

00:19revenue to fund the city's university system. Mamdani is no stranger to Columbia. His father

00:25is a Harvard-educated, renowned professor there, and he grew up in university-owned housing.

00:31According to an account in the student newspaper, he told the crowd, quote,

00:35Today, Mamdani, a democratic socialist, proudly rejects the elite circles where he got his start.

00:44His mother, also Harvard-educated, is an award-winning film director. Mamdani lives in a

00:50rent-stabilized apartment, owns no car, and lists just one major asset in his financial disclosure—several

00:57acres of land in his native Uganda that he acquired at least a decade ago. And his social-media-savvy

01:03outsider campaign to become New York's next mayor has carried him to victory in the Democratic primary

01:08that was held on Tuesday, where he defeated the frontrunner, former New York governor Andrew Cuomo,

01:14who had pitched himself as an experienced hand on the wheel in a turbulent time.

01:17Mamdani and Cuomo's life stories share more parallels than one might think,

01:23given their divergent political approaches. Cuomo also had a privileged upbringing,

01:28as the son of a lawyer who eventually became the governor of New York and as the one-time

01:31husband of a Kennedy. Both men rent their apartments, though Cuomo pays almost four times as

01:37much for his two-bedroom in midtown Manhattan, and neither one owns any property in the city.

01:43Both tried to sell themselves as the true avatars of the working class, despite their upbringings,

01:48with Mamdani running on freezing rent and making New York buses free, while Cuomo emphasized public

01:54safety issues. Where they diverge is their net worth. Forbes estimates Mamdani to be worth around

02:01$200,000, 50 times less than Cuomo, who we peg at $10 million.

02:06Mamdani was born in Kampala, the capital of Uganda, in 1991, the same year his Indian-American

02:14filmmaker mother, Mira Nair, released her second movie, Mississippi Masala, starring Denzel Washington.

02:22That was just three years after her debut feature film, Salaam Bombay, which depicted the lives of

02:27children living in the city's slums and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign

02:31Language Film. She is also known for Monsoon Wedding, which won the Golden Lion at the 2001

02:37Venice Film Festival. The family moved to New York City when Mamdani was seven years old,

02:42after his father, Mahmoud Mamdani, got a job teaching at Columbia University.

02:48The younger Mamdani attended Bank Street, a prestigious Manhattan private school,

02:52before graduating from the Bronx High School of Science, one of the city's best public schools.

02:56He then attended Bowdoin College, a private liberal arts school in Maine. After graduating in 2014,

03:03he worked on his mother's sets and took jobs working on several political campaigns and community

03:08organizing efforts, per a review of former resumes by the New York Times. He became a naturalized U.S.

03:14citizen in 2018. In 2020, Mamdani ran for a state assembly seat and won, beating a five-term incumbent.

03:22The job pays $142,000 annually. Today, he lives in a $2,250 a month rent-stabilized Astoria apartment

03:32and doesn't own a car, taking the subway to his debate appearances.

03:36A quarter of a century after moving to the U.S., Mamdani's net worth today is still based in the East

03:41African country from which he emigrated. According to the financial disclosures he filed as a state

03:46assemblyman in 2023, he acquired four acres of land in Jinja, a region of Uganda bordering Lake Victoria,

03:53that contains the source of the Nile River, in 2012. He lists the land's value as between $150,000

04:01and $250,000. New York City disclosures don't require candidates to list cash accounts,

04:08so there's the possibility Mamdani's worth a bit more than the documents show.

04:12Another caveat, he married his wife, a Syrian-born artist, earlier this year after the disclosures

04:18were due, so any assets she has may not show up until next year's filings.

04:24For full coverage, check out Kyle Kahn Mullins' piece on Forbes.com.

04:30This is Kieran Meadows from Forbes. Thanks for tuning in.

04:42My name is Kieran Meadows from Forbes.

04:44My name is Kieran Meadows.

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