Khaberni - At least 26 billionaires spent millions of dollars in an attempt to prevent Zuhair Momdani from taking the office of the New York City Mayor, yet surprisingly two billionaires have supported him.
According to Forbes, over the past week, 26 billionaires or billionaire families spent a total of over $22 million to prevent Momdani (a New York City Council member and poll leader) from winning the election.
Momdani describes himself as a democratic socialist, believing that the existence of billionaires should not exist.
Elizabeth Simmons
On the other hand, Elizabeth Simmons, daughter of the late billionaire hedge fund manager Jim Simmons (died in 2024), who shares a fortune worth $32.5 billion, donated about $250,000 to the organization "New Yorkers for Lower Costs," the main independent group supporting Momdani's campaign in August.
Elizabeth's donation comes as part of a long family history of political giving, with Jim Simmons having been a major donor to the Democratic Party, injecting more than $100 million into federal elections between 2015 and 2024.
Elizabeth Simmons, residing in Atherton, California, is known as an activist in the field of nonprofit organizations, serves on the boards of progressive organizations such as the Marshall Project and the Foundation for a Fair Society (founded by her sister Audrey), and volunteers at the magazine "The Beat Within" (for incarcerated youth) and chairs the Heising-Simons Foundation, which has donated nearly $1.3 billion since 2007 to organizations working in the areas of climate change, education, human rights, and science.
Tom Preston-Werner
The second billionaire supporting Momdani is Tom Preston-Werner, the co-founder of GitHub, who is 45 years old. In April, he sent a check worth $20,000 to the "New Yorkers for Lower Costs" organization.
Werner, also a resident of the San Francisco Bay Area, started the software development platform in 2008 and became a billionaire after Microsoft bought the company for $7.5 billion in 2018; Forbes estimates his net worth at about $1 billion today, and he now runs an investment capital firm called Preston-Werner Ventures.
Werner has smaller political donations, and an analysis of Federal Election Commission records indicates that he and his wife Teresa donated about $2 million in federal elections since 2019.
In his blog, Werner, who is also a signatory to the Pledge to Donate, highlights additional donations in 2020 for COVID-19 relief (worth $1 million) and racial justice efforts ($250,000). Since 2019, their foundation has distributed $28 million according to a review of tax records. Forbes says none of the donors responded to requests for comment.
While Simmons and Werner might be the only billionaires who support Momdani, he has attracted prominent other donors, including Haroon and Idris Mokhtarzadeh, brothers from the Washington capital region who co-founded the personal finance company "Rocket Money" based in Maryland, and currently hold the positions of CEO and CTO, respectively.
Haroon donated $99,000, while Idris contributed $90,000.
Famous donors also include Hollywood star Jane Fonda, who was married to billionaire Ted Turner and lives in Georgia, donating $1,000.
Actress Cynthia Nixon, residing in the city - who challenged Andrew Cuomo for the position of Governor of New York in 2018- donated $5,000.
