Despite his privileged upbringing—or perhaps because of it—Zohran Mamdani, the son of a Columbia University professor and a celebrated filmmaker, has built his political identity around democratic socialism and the idea of redistributing New York’s wealth.
At a Harlem panel earlier this year, Mamdani discussed a proposal to revoke tax breaks for Columbia University and redirect the revenue to the city’s public university system. “Columbia was our first landlord,” he told the audience, referencing his childhood in university-owned housing. His father, still a Columbia professor, continues to teach there.
Now 34, Mamdani distances himself from the elite institutions that shaped him. He lives modestly in a $2,250-per-month rent-stabilized apartment in Astoria, owns no car, and reports only one significant asset: a small parcel of land in Uganda, his birthplace.
That low-key lifestyle contrasts sharply with his rising national profile. Mamdani’s grassroots, social media–driven campaign for New York mayor has positioned him neck-and-neck with former Governor Andrew Cuomo, his main rival for the Democratic nomination. Both men hail from privilege—Cuomo from a political dynasty, Mamdani from academia and the arts—and both are trying to recast themselves as voices of the working class.
Cuomo rents a Midtown apartment for roughly four times Mamdani’s rent, while Mamdani champions policies like free public transit and rent freezes. Neither owns property in New York City.
Born in Kampala, Uganda, in 1991, Mamdani is the son of Mahmood Mamdani, a Harvard-trained scholar of African history and colonialism, and Mira Nair, the acclaimed director of Salaam Bombay!, Mississippi Masala, and Monsoon Wedding. The family relocated to New York when he was seven, after his father joined Columbia’s faculty.
Mamdani attended Bank Street, an elite Manhattan private school where tuition now exceeds $66,000 a year, before enrolling at the Bronx High School of Science and later Bowdoin College in Maine, where he studied Africana Studies.
After graduating in 2014, he briefly worked on his mother’s film projects and explored a rap career under the stage names Young Cardamom and Mr. Cardamom, earning a modest $1,000 in royalties in 2024. He later shifted to community organizing and political campaigns. In 2020, after becoming a U.S. citizen two years earlier, Mamdani won a seat in the New York State Assembly, unseating a five-term incumbent. The position pays $142,000 annually.
Financial disclosures show that his only reported asset is about four acres of land in Jinja, Uganda, near the source of the Nile River, valued between $150,000 and $250,000. The property remains undeveloped. Records differ on when he acquired it—one filing lists 2012, another 2016—and his campaign has not clarified whether the land was purchased, inherited, or gifted.
New York City’s disclosure rules do not require candidates to list cash holdings, so Mamdani’s total worth could be slightly higher. He also married a Syrian-born artist earlier this year, whose assets will likely appear in future filings.
His parents’ finances are more substantial. Professor Mahmood Mamdani earns an estimated $200,000–$300,000 annually based on Columbia faculty data. The family’s Columbia-owned apartment on the Upper West Side was once listed at $6,000 per month, and Nair sold her Chelsea condo in 2019 for $1.45 million, roughly what she paid in 2008.
If elected in November, Mamdani would be New York’s youngest mayor since 1889, with a salary of $260,000. He would also gain residence at the official Gracie Mansion, just three blocks from the Q train, perfectly suited to his car-free lifestyle.
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