00:00Today on Forbes, here are the two billionaires supporting Zoran Mamdani.
00:07Today is election day, and voters in New York City will be choosing a new mayor.
00:12Last week, Forbes combed through campaign finance records to find the billionaires spending
00:17to stop Zoran Mamdani, a self-described democratic socialist who says billionaires should not
00:22exist, from becoming mayor of America's largest city.
00:27That analysis identified 26 billionaires or billionaire families who had poured over
00:31$22 million in total into the race, trying to stop the New York state assemblyman who
00:37is leading in the polls.
00:39Since then, Mike Bloomberg has donated another $1.5 million to a group backing Mamdani's
00:44rival, former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.
00:48More surprising is the fact that as of October 27th, there are at least two billionaires pulling
00:54for Mamdani.
00:56The first is Elizabeth Simons, the daughter of the late hedge fund billionaire Jim Simons,
01:02who shares a $32.5 billion fortune with her stepmother Marilyn and two siblings.
01:08She cut a check for $250,000 to New Yorkers for lower costs, the main independent group
01:14backing Mamdani's campaign, in August.
01:17Elizabeth's donation comes as part of a long family history of political giving.
01:21Her late father, Jim Simons, who started his career as a codebreaker and a math professor
01:26before founding hedge fund Renaissance Technologies in 1982, was an investment legend known for
01:32automated quantitative models and his exclusive Medallion Fund, which averaged 30% returns annually
01:39after fees.
01:40He was worth an estimated $31.4 billion when he died in April 2024, and was a major Democratic
01:48donor, pumping over $100 million into federal races between 2015 and 2024.
01:56An Atherton, California resident, Liz Simons earned degrees in journalism and education
02:01from the University of California, Berkeley and Stanford University, respectively, before
02:06going into teaching.
02:07She worked in Spanish bilingual and English as a second language classrooms.
02:13She is now active in the nonprofit world, serving on the boards of progressive groups
02:17like the Marshall Project and the Foundation for a Just Society, the latter founded by her
02:21sister Audrey, and volunteering at The Beat Within, a magazine by and for incarcerated youth.
02:29She also heads the Huizing Simons Foundation, which has given away almost $1.3 billion since
02:352007 to groups working on climate change, education, human rights, and science.
02:42Like her father, Liz has signed the Giving Pledge, committing to donating a majority of her fortune
02:47to charity.
02:49Sending Mamdani some financial reinforcement isn't the first time Liz has waded into politics.
02:55A review of federal election records show more than $25 million in contributions to Democrats
03:00since 2015, including about $10 million in the 2024 cycle.
03:06She's already sent almost $900,000 to the DCCC and DSCC, the official Democratic campaign arms for House
03:13and Senate races, this year.
03:16Mamdani's other billionaire backer is GitHub co-founder Tom Preston Werner.
03:21In April, he sent New Yorkers for lower costs a check for $20,000.
03:26Preston Werner, also a Bay Area resident, started the software development platform GitHub in 2008
03:32and became a billionaire after Microsoft bought the company for $7.5 billion in 2018.
03:38His net worth is about $1 billion today, Forbes estimates.
03:43He now runs a venture capital firm called Preston Werner Ventures.
03:47Unlike Simons, Preston Werner has a more sparse political giving history.
03:52An analysis of federal election commission records suggests that he and his wife, Teresa,
03:57have given about $2 million in federal races since 2019.
04:02On his blog, Preston Werner, also a giving pledge signatory, highlights additional donations
04:07in 2020 to COVID-19 relief, $1 million, and racial justice efforts, $250,000.
04:16Their foundation has distributed $28 million since 2019.
04:20A review of tax records shows.
04:22Neither donor replied to requests for comment.
04:26The two billionaires' contributions, which together represents about 10% of all the money
04:30New Yorkers for lower costs has taken in so far, pit them against a posse of Mamdani's
04:36billionaire foes that includes Democratic stalwarts like Michael Bloomberg and Reed Hastings,
04:42and Trump allies like Joe Jebbia and Steve Wynn.
04:47For full coverage, check out Kyle Kahn Mullins' piece on Forbes.com.
04:53This is Kieran Meadows from Forbes.
04:55Thanks for tuning in.
