Former hedge fund manager Whitney Tilson became the latest New York City mayoral candidate to veer left Thursday — taking a page out of Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani’s book by saying all public transit should be free.
Tilson, known as a conservative-leaning Democrat, shockingly even floated “ripping out all the subway turnstiles” as an experiment during a press conference where he revealed he’s a proponent of free subways and buses.
His comments — which mirrored Mamdani’s plan to make riding on city buses free — came despite the financier spending much of the campaign attacking the Queens Assemblyman over his far-left policies, including during the first primary debate Wednesday night.
“I’m willing to speak out about him (Mamdani) because he is a radical, dangerous socialist who will ruin the city if he’s elected,” Tilson said outside City Hall Thursday.
But when the businessman was asked by The Post whether he agreed with any of Mamdani’s policies — he had a surprising outlook on subsidizing busses and subways.
The Harvard-educated investor said he liked Mamdani’s free bus trial, and suggested taking it a step further to include subways.
“Actually, I’ve been exploring the numbers to see if we can get enough cost savings —to experiment with making a handful of our 478 subway stations rip out the turnstiles,” he said, adding, “in a few very low-income communities where probably half the people are jumping the turnstiles anyway.”
The stunning assertion led reporters to ask him to clarify — prompting Tilson to backpedal slightly.
He stressed that what he was proposing would be an “experiment,” adding, “let’s call it half a dozen or a dozen subways.”
Tilson’s leftist stance on transit seemed to contradict his relentless concerns with Mamdani’s policies, like rent-freezing and taxing the 1%.
However, he did say he would possibly have to cut the city budget if elected mayor — following in the footsteps of Mike Bloomberg.
“I am worried that with the insane Trump tariffs,” said Tilson, who is currently polling 1%.
“We could be in for some tough economic times.”
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