Billionaire Citadel founder Ken Griffin is encouraging New York’s business leaders to take on socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani, warning that the city’s future could be at risk if employers and investors stay quiet.
“They need to find their voice and fight for their city,” Griffin said Thursday at a Manhattan event, according to Bloomberg.
“My advice is to speak up. What’s the worst that’s going to happen? It will be that New York empties of talent and that’s a catastrophe. If the mayor wants to say a few words about you, your record speaks for itself: You create jobs, you create value and you pay taxes.”
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Griffin’s remarks mark the latest chapter in an ongoing clash between Wall Street’s billionaire class and Mamdani, whose proposals to raise taxes on wealthy New Yorkers and luxury property owners have drawn fierce criticism from business leaders concerned about the city’s economic competitiveness.
The financial titan, whose net worth is estimated at $48.3 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, argued that New York’s corporate leaders should focus on the long-term future of the city rather than short-term political battles.
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“Everything should be viewed through the lens of, Citadel will be here far longer than he’ll be mayor,” Griffin said.
The comments come as Griffin and Mamdani appear to be cautiously opening a dialogue after months of public sparring over taxes, wealth and the city’s business climate.
The socialist mayor recently reached out to Griffin after previously criticizing the billionaire hedge fund manager over his Manhattan penthouse and personal wealth. Mamdani notably stood outside Griffin’s luxury property to promote his proposal to raise taxes on second homes in New York City worth more than $5 million.
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The outreach comes as some business leaders warn New York risks alienating major employers and investors — a concern Griffin has raised before in another major American city.
The tensions have fueled concerns among some business leaders that New York could follow a path similar to Chicago, where Griffin spent years criticizing crime, taxes and public policy before moving Citadel’s headquarters to Miami in 2022. The relocation marked the departure of one of the financial industry’s most influential firms and underscored the economic impact that can follow when a major corporate player leaves a major city.
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Griffin has repeatedly pointed to Florida’s business climate as a model and warned that policies targeting high earners and businesses could make New York less competitive.
Griffin said he plans to talk to Mamdani “at some point in the months ahead.”
“Let’s see where he is on the state of policy at that time,” he said. “Actions speak louder than words.”

An old Joann fabric and craft store is getting new life, if only for a weekend: Hundreds of Southern Californians are expected to visit in search of new art, clothes, decor and an afternoon of communal crafting.
That’s the mission behind Lauren Tetef’s Open House Creative Fest, which will run June 27 and 28 from the old Joann location at the Del Amo Fashion Center mall in Torrance, California.
The event is part artisan market, part workshop series where guests can learn new skills directly from the makers behind what they’re buying.
“As an attendee, you get a little taste of what somebody does,” says Tetef, 40, a long-time events producer. “You get to sit down and metaphorically break bread with them, have a conversation with them, get to know them. And by doing that, you’re so much more invested in their business.”
A weekend of shopping and crafting
Admission to the Open House Creative Fest event is free to walk around and shop from roughly 25 vendors, each of whom will also host their own crafting workshops. The creatively inclined can purchase an activity passport, starting at $40, which will give them access to do each booth’s activity.
For example, a participating florist plans to host sessions where she’ll guide visitors on arranging dried flowers onto a greeting card for people to keep; another vendor who sells clothes plans to show people how to make a keychain by upcycling old selvage material.
The activity passport will also give shoppers free range at the event’s “activity garden” with tables full of fabric, paper, paints and other art supplies to create their own projects.
“This is my dream come true,” says Tetef, who attended the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising (FIDM) in Los Angeles and was inspired by the campus’s free materials library. “I just want to go to a thing where everyone’s sitting down making stuff.”
Saving roughly $24,000 after a layoff
Much like the temporarily revived Joann space, Tetef’s creative fest is a kind of comeback.
In March 2025, Tetef started a corporate marketing job but says the import-heavy business was impacted by the Trump administration’s new tariff policy; Tetef says she was laid off just six months later in August. Despite the unexpected turn of events, she says, “it was a good opportunity for me to figure something out: What do I do next?”
She started brainstorming Open House Creative Fest and sees it as an amalgamation of everything she’s done in her career.
Tetef had previously worked as a director of events and produced dozens of meet-ups, from large-scale pop-up markets to intimate influencer events. About two years ago, she also started her own business, Flourish Locally, which hosts networking events for small businesses and creative workshops like charm-making sessions.
Tetef says she and her family lived off her severance check and her husband’s income. She took on events clients through her own business and put aside all of her earnings to go toward the creative fest, saving roughly $24,000 in just a few months.
‘It was such a special place to all of us’
When Tetef was scouting for a location, she says a leasing agent at the Del Amo Fashion Center pitched her the old Joann fabric and crafts store space.
In February 2025, the company announced it would close all of its nearly 800 of the fabric and craft stores after it failed to find a buyer to stay in business.
Tetef paid $3,000 in rent, plus a $1,000 security deposit, to rent the Torrance mall space for a month, and got the keys on June 1. Tetef says she’s spent an additional few thousand dollars on expenses like a cleaning crew, a construction crew to work on some of the store fixtures, decor and rugs, vinyl to wrap the store front, a photographer, supplies for the activity garden and more.
The event has seen nearly 500 RSVPs across Eventbrite and Partiful and 70 pre-sale passport purchases, Tetef says, and she’s hopeful weekend foot traffic to the mall could entice other visitors.
The significance that Tetef’s event is posting up in an old Joann store isn’t lost on her.
“It was such a special place to all of us,” Tetef says, “where you would just get your shopping cart and you would wander the aisles and something would spark your imagination,” she says. “If [people] were in a creative roadblock, they could come here and find a solve for it. Everybody has been touched by this space.”
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The Federal Aviation Administration said that it was investigating a near miss between two planes at Boston Logan International Airport that happened on Saturday morning.
The episode happened at about 11:30 a.m., when Delta Air Lines Flight 2351 performed a go-around to avoid another plane that was taking off from an intersecting runway, the F.A.A. said in statement. The agency did not identify the other plane involved.
A go-around is a standard maneuver in which a plane aborts a landing, repositions and tries again. The F.A.A. said information around the episode was preliminary.
Data from Flightradar24, a flight-tracking website, showed that the Delta flight, arriving from Dallas, aborted its approach for landing as American Airlines Flight 3161, bound for Charlotte, N.C., approached from an intersecting runway.
The two planes were a few hundred feet apart, the tracking data showed. The Delta plane landed around 10 minutes later, according to the tracking data.
Delta said the flight crew received an advisory from an onboard system warning of potential traffic while the plane was descending and coordinated with air traffic control to perform the go-around. The plane landed safely and the passengers deplaned normally, according to a spokesperson for the airline.
The plane, an Airbus A319, was carrying 129 passengers and six crew members, the spokesperson said.
American Airlines did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
This was the latest in a string of near misses at U.S. airports in recent months. In April, an American Airlines regional jet flew dangerously close to an Air Canada regional jet after aborting its landing at Kennedy International Airport, according to the F.A.A.
The same month, the agency also investigated a close call between two Southwest Airlines jets at Nashville International Airport, in which an air traffic controller inadvertently directed an incoming plane into the path of a departing aircraft. The planes came within about 500 vertical feet of each other as the pilots reacted to onboard collision alerts, according to Flightradar24 and the F.A.A.

HOLLYWOOD, Fla. — A gazebo collapse at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Hollywood injured five people on Saturday evening, officials said.
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It happened at around 7 p.m. near the pool at the DAER Dayclub.
Bystanders quickly responded and medics transported the injured to Memorial Regional Hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
The collapse was believed to have been weather-related; strong winds and rain were moving through the area at the time.
All five victims are expected to recover.
A spokesperson for the Seminole Police Department said in part that the “safety and security of our guests and team members are our highest priorities” and that the club “was closed immediately to ensure the safety and security of all attendees.”
Editor’s note: The original version of the article misstated the time of the collapse as 7 a.m. instead of 7 p.m. It has been corrected.
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There’s a rumor swirling around that American Airlines may bring back former CEO Doug Parker to replace current CEO Robert Isom. When I first heard this, I thought “wait, there’s no way the board would do something like this, right?” However, the more I think about it, the more I think “wait, that’s exactly what American’s board would do, of course.” Let me explain…
Airline executives speculate Doug Parker may replace Robert Isom
In recent years, American has been falling further and further behind both Delta and United when it comes to financial performance. In reality, Delta is still strongest, while United has been pulling ahead at American’s expense, as it seems to be a zero sum game between the two airlines.
Simply put, the company has lacked a cohesive vision for so long. Premium… not premium… now premium again… who is to say?! It has now gotten to the point where management realizes they need to invest in customer experience, but one wonders if it’s too little too late, especially with the pace at which Delta and United are also investing in their products. It’s not easy to make up ground in these circumstances.
I’m not alone in wondering who will fix American, and when they’ll replace CEO Robert Isom. If American had a competent board, we would’ve seen a management change a long time ago. While I’m sure the board doesn’t want to admit that it has been asleep at the wheel, sooner or later, something’s gotta give.
The issue is that several board members are doubling down and don’t want to admit defeat, since they’re the same people who were behind the decision to choose Isom over Scott Kirby to lead American next (Kirby was president of American, and was then told he’d never be CEO, which is why he left to go to United, and there’s a lot of bad blood there).
So that brings us to the latest rumor that’s swirling around. Brian Sumers, who writes the Airline Observer (a paid subscription for full access) recently attended the IATA AGM in Rio de Janeiro, which is the one event each year attended by virtually every airline industry executive. While a lot of important stuff happens in official meetings, what’s equally interesting is what’s discussed off the record, and at the bars late at night. Airline executives love to gossip (who doesn’t?!).
Sumers explains that one of the most common topics of conversation among executives was whether Isom will make it through the end of 2026, and who will eventually replace him. I’ve shared my take in the past on who I think would be a good fit to replace Isom, but it seems industry executives have a different theory. The leading candidate to replace Isom, according to other executives? Well, it could be former American CEO Doug Parker (who was previously CEO of US Airways, and CEO of America West before that — he’s one of the industry’s longest serving airline CEOs).
The idea is that Parker has the industry experience and respect needed to turn the airline around… or something. Keep in mind Parker is still somewhat in the industry, as he’s on the board of Qantas. And he’s “only” 64, five years younger than Delta CEO Ed Bastian.
Parker would do nothing to fix American’s underlying problems
As a person, I respect Parker quite a bit. He seems like a kind, fair guy, he’s surprisingly pro union, and he has certainly done a lot for the airline industry over the years, being a leading voice during tough times (including going to Washington asking for bailouts).
However, if you ask me, Parker and Isom are almost identical in that regard — they’re both nice guys, but they lack a vision. Even as American started its slow descent under Parker, he had the same “oh, everything is fine” narrative that Isom now has. I actually suspect this might’ve been one of the reasons that Kirby was passed over in favor of Isom — Kirby is absolutely cutthroat, highly competitive, and wants to win, while neither Parker nor Isom have that mentality.
Replacing Isom with Parker would do absolutely nothing to fix American. The single biggest thing that American needs is a CEO who can excite employees, and who can get them to rally behind a vision. Period. End of story. Without that, there is no turnaround, because employees are just confused and indifferent, given the lack of direction they’ve been given.
Personally, I also think it needs to be an outsider, so that the board shows employees that they’re serious about change. Simply rearranging the America West deck chairs doesn’t send a message of actual change to employees. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again — someone like Air France-KLM CEO Ben Smith would be the person to turn the airline around.
Now, do I think the odds of that happening are actually good? No, probably not. That would be way too out-of-the-box for American’s board. And American is an airline that probably more than any other promotes from within. That’s great in theory, but it’s also why there’s such groupthink, and how we’ve gotten to this point.
American actually has some decent executives now — recently appointed Chief Commercial Officer Nat Pieper is a bright guy, and I think he has the right idea with strategy, and he’s also sort of an outsider. That being said, my impression is that he might be more of a Glen Hauenstein type than a Bastian type (Hauenstein was Delta’s former president, and he was really the guy behind most of the strategy, even though you almost never heard from him).
Meanwhile Chief Customer Officer Heather Garboden has been the person behind many of the positive changes in recent times, but again, she’s from the America West “club,” and I’m not sure a 20+ year veteran of the company is really the person employees are going to rally around, because they’ve been let down too often. For that matter, I don’t know enough about her to wager a guess as to whether she can actually be innovative — virtually all the positive changes we’ve seen from American in recent times have just been obvious areas where the company is catching up with the competition.
One thing is for sure — the board can only ignore reality for so much longer. Or I dunno, maybe they can, because little about our corporate world makes sense.
Bottom line
American CEO Robert Isom just hasn’t been doing a great job leading the airline in the right direction, at least when you look at the company’s financial performance compared to that of competitors. While the idea seems sort of wild to me, many other industry executives reportedly think that the most likely successor to Isom is a return of Parker.
Replacing a nice guy who lacks strategy with a nice guy who lacks strategy just doesn’t strike me as a wise decision. Then again, American’s board is the whole reason we’re in this situation to begin with, given that they opted for Isom over former president Kirby to take over at American.
I’d like to think that there’s no way this could happen, but who really knows…