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\u2019s wealth.<\/b>
\nAt a panel in Harlem in February, New York state assembly member Zohran Mamdani discussed a piece of proposed legislation that would strip Columbia University of various tax breaks and redirect the revenue to fund the City\u2019s university system. Mamdani\u2019s no stranger to Columbia\u2014his father is a Harvard-educated, renowned professor there, and he grew up in university-owned housing. \u201cColumbia was our first landlord,\u201d he told the crowd, according to an account in the student newspaper.
Today, Mamdani, a democratic socialist, proudly rejects the elite circles\u2014his mother, also Harvard-educated, is an award-winning director\u2014where he got his start. He lives in a rent-stabilized apartment, owns no car and lists just one major asset in his financial disclosure, several acres of land in his native Uganda that he acquired at least a decade ago. And his social media-savvy outsider campaign to become New York\u2019s next mayor has carried him to polling neck-and-neck with the other frontrunner, former New York governor Andrew Cuomo, who\u2019s pitching himself as an experienced hand on the wheel in a turbulent time. No matter what happens in the Democratic primary today, many believe that both men will stay in the race to run on a third party line.
Mamdani was born in Kampala, the capital of Uganda, in 1991, the same year his Indian-American filmmaker mother Mira Nair released her second movie, \u201cMississippi Masala,\u201d starring Denzel Washington. That was just three years after her debut feature film \u201cSalaam Bombay!,\u201d which depicted the lives of children living in the city\u2019s slums, was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. (She is also known for \u201cMonsoon Wedding,\u201d which won the Golden Lion at the 2001 Venice Film Festival.) The family moved to New York City when Mamdani was seven years old, after his father, Mahmood Mamdani, got a job teaching at Columbia University.
The younger Mamdani attended Bank Street, a prestigious Manhattan private school that now costs as much as $66,000 a year for elementary school students, before graduating from the Bronx High School of Science, one of the city\u2019s best public schools. Next, he studied Africana Studies at Bowdoin College, a private liberal arts school in Maine that is also the alma mater of Netflix\u2019s Reed Hastings and former American Express CEO Ken Chenault.
After graduating in 2014, he worked on his mother\u2019s sets, tried his hand at a rap career\u2014reportedly, using the monikers Young Cardamom and Mr. Cardamom, including the single \u201cNani,\u201d which featured actress and cookbook author Madhur Jaffrey\u2014and took jobs working on several political campaigns and community organizing efforts, per a review of former resumes by The New York Times. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2018, then found stability: In 2020, Mamdani ran for a state assembly seat and won, beating a five-term incumbent. The job pays $142,000 annually\u2014much more than the $1,000 in rap royalties he reported in 2024. Today, he lives in a $2,250\/month rent-stabilized Astoria apartment and doesn\u2019t own a car, taking the subway to his debate appearances.
A quarter of a century after moving to the U.S., Mamdani\u2019s net worth today is still based in the East African country from which he emigrated. According to the financial disclosures he filed as a state assemblyman in 2023, he acquired four acres of land in Jinja\u2014a region of Uganda bordering Lake Victoria that contains the source of the Nile River\u2014in 2012. He lists the land\u2019s value as between $150,000 and $250,000. On the disclosure he filed as a mayoral candidate earlier this year, he says that he acquired the land in 2016 and that it remains vacant and unimproved. Whether he purchased it, was gifted it, inherited it or otherwise is unclear, as is the reason for the discrepancy in the date, and his campaign did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
New York City disclosures don\u2019t require candidates to list cash accounts, so there\u2019s the possibility Mamdani\u2019s worth a bit more than the documents show. Another caveat: he married his wife, a Syrian-born artist, earlier this year after the disclosures were due, so any assets she has may not show up until next year\u2019s filings.
Meanwhile, his parents\u2019 net worth is likely more significant. His father, who has written at least seven books, is still a professor at Columbia, where he specializes in colonialism and conflicts in Africa. Based on data for Columbia from the American Association of University Professors, he likely makes somewhere between $200,000 and $300,000 a year.
The couple appear to still live in Columbia-owned housing on the Upper West Side; their three-bedroom apartment was listed for $6,000 rent in 2017, per StreetEasy. Nair used to own a condo in Chelsea, but sold it in 2019 for $1.45 million, barely more than the $1.4 million she paid for it in 2008.
If elected in November, Mamdani, at age 34, would be the youngest mayor since Hugh John Grant, who was inaugurated at 30 in 1889, and would get a raise to $260,000. Plus, he could save on rent by moving into Gracie Mansion, the official mayoral residence on the Upper East Side. Living there, he could continue the car-free lifestyle and take the subway to work\u2014the Q train is only three blocks away.
With additional reporting by Lily Ogburn.<\/p>\n