Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy is weighing whether to close his company’s New York City office because of Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral election, calling the democratic socialist a “Communist” who hates America.
Portnoy said he has given a lot of thought to closing the office during a YouTube livestream last week ahead of Mamdani’s election win on Tuesday.
“I hate the guy,” Portnoy said of Mamdani. “I can’t stand the thought of him running New York City. I can’t stand it.”
“Thirty-something-year-old Communist running New York City who’s never had a job in his life, hates America — doesn’t seem like the best,” he added.
Portnoy contemplated moving the office across the Hudson River to the New Jersey cities of Hoboken or Jersey City.
“I don’t want to f****** have an office [in Manhattan],” he said. “But then we have all those people who, like, that f**** up their life because I hate the guy. Like, all the people in the New York office have to go to Jersey City or … Hoboken. So it’s a Catch-22.”
“A part of me is like, how much will actually change? But I really have given it thought,” he said. “I told our finance guys to start looking around for property, no joke. Take a principled stand.”
Mamdani, a New York state assemblyman who was born in Uganda, promised rent freezes, city-run grocery stores and expanded public housing. Critics have said the proposed measures will hurt investment and force employers to leave the city.
Following Mamdani’s election win, Portnoy went on X: “But if this is what the people of NYC want than so be it. Thank god I don’t live there anymore.”
In a July interview with FOX Business, Portnoy called Mamdani a “communist” and “one of the worst, scariest candidates.”
“He hates capitalism, he wants a fundamental shift in what has built this country, and he doesn’t really particularly hide it,” Portnoy said.
FOX Business has reached out to the Mamdani transition team.
