Eric Adams promises NYC will ‘no longer be anti-business’ at SALT
Brooklyn’s borough president visited the Mooch and gave Wall Street a smooch.
Eric Adams, the Democratic candidate and heavy favorite in New York City’s mayoral race, promised a change in the city’s posture toward business as he addressed Anthony Scaramucci’s SALT Conference in Midtown Manhattan on Monday morning.
“New York will no longer be anti-business,” Adams declared at the annual hedge fund schmooze fest, which moved to the Javits Center this year from its traditional location in Las Vegas. “This is going to be a place where we welcome business.”
In his speech, Adams offered a deal to the crowd of high rollers. He said he would clean up crime, battle homelessness, hack into the city’s affordability problem and partner hand-in-glove with the business community.
“But we expect something in return, folks,” he told hundreds of people as he spoke from the event’s main stage. “We want to ask you to offer your jobs to New Yorkers. Right now, there are hundreds of thousands of people out of work in New York. And there are hundreds of thousands of jobs that you have that we can fill.”
Adams said he wants the city’s business community to use a “common” citywide job application to fill its openings, and employers to collaborate with the city’s Workforce Development center to nurture workers who may not immediately have the necessary skills and training.
He said he was suggesting an “unprecedented” relationship between the city’s government and its private businesses.
Past speakers at the glitzy confab have included President Biden, former Mayor Mike Bloomberg, and former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. This year’s gathering marked SALT’s in-person return following the coronavirus crisis, and about 2,400 attendees were expected.
Adams’ remarks kicked off the three-day event.
After running as a centrist on business issues during the city’s bruising Democratic primary, the former NYPD captain appears to be seeking space between himself and Mayor de Blasio, painting himself as a bridge between working class voters who boosted him and money-flush firms he is courting.
De Blasio, an ally of Adams who privately supported him in the primary, responded to the SALT remarks by saying he believes the city has “supported businesses while also supporting working people.”
But the mayor has had an often frosty relationship with financial leaders during his tenure, and he once said that “mayors should not be too cozy with the business community.”
In his rhetoric, Adams has pursued a different tack. He recently told The Wall Street Journal that he doesn’t begrudge wealthy New Yorkers who have fled to Florida during the pandemic, arguing that the city “has become too violent, too bureaucratic, too expensive to do business.”
His outlook may dismay some on the left flank of the Democratic party, but it doesn’t seem likely to hurt him in his November race against Curtis Sliwa, the Republican candidate.
And Scaramucci — a moderate Republican who founded SkyBridge Capital, briefly led former President Donald Trump’s press shop and then vociferously supported Biden in 2020 — lavished praise on Adams at SALT.
In May, Scaramucci tweeted that de Blasio had “destroyed our city.” On Monday, he said he was endorsing Adams to replace de Blasio, calling him the “right person at the right time” as he introduced the candidate.
Scaramucci, who lives in Manhasset on Long Island, told the Daily News that while he can’t back Adams at the ballot box, he’s donated to his campaign. And he added that he hopes to introduce Adams again at SALT next year, in the same glass-castle venue with a larger post-pandemic crowd.
“Eric will do a good job,” Scaramucci said. “He’s a very good human being.”
With Chris Sommerfeldt
