When Andrew Yang parachuted into the New York Metropolis mayor’s race from a shedding presidential marketing campaign, he was a identified nationwide amount however unknown within the insular world of native politics.
He didn’t rise from a political membership, had by no means run for native workplace and had no established base of monetary or political assist within the metropolis. He had by no means even voted in a mayoral election.
However he had one main asset working in his favor: He had joined forces with Bradley Tusk, a robust New York political strategist, lobbyist and enterprise capitalist whose investments may hinge on authorities motion.
Mr. Yang leads most early polling in a race for mayor that’s lower than seven weeks away. However Mr. Tusk’s private enterprise issues may current important potential conflicts of curiosity ought to Mr. Yang be elected mayor.
Mr. Tusk, 47, has an expansive political and monetary portfolio. He labored for Senator Chuck Schumer as his communications director, was a particular adviser to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg after which turned deputy governor of Illinois, underneath Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
His enterprise agency lists pursuits in high-profile corporations like Fowl, the electrical scooter firm; Coinbase, a cryptocurrency firm; and Latch, an organization that makes keyless entry programs for houses.
He additionally has a well known penchant for self-aggrandizement: His 2018 e-book known as “The Fixer: My Adventures Saving Startups From Dying by Politics.” He describes numerous exploits, together with how he helped Uber beat back authorities rules — although a few of his colleagues have stated that he has taken extra credit score than he deserves. Nonetheless, as a result of he took fairness within the firm in trade for consulting recommendation, he in the end cashed out for what some reviews estimate as $100 million.
And now he’s advising a candidate with a complete absence of presidency expertise — a lot in order that Mr. Tusk lately known as Mr. Yang an “empty vessel.”
“Tusk may primarily be the shadow mayor for New York, whereas he’s representing the pursuits of massive company purchasers,” stated John Kaehny, government director of the good-government group Reinvent Albany.
After The New York Occasions sought remark from Mr. Yang’s marketing campaign, Mr. Tusk posted a 1,000-word assertion on Medium blaming his political opponents for rumor-mongering, and outlining insurance policies that he and his group would observe ought to Mr. Yang win the election.
“If we win, I cannot foyer or speak with the brand new mayor — nor anybody in a Yang administration — on any matter that intersects with our work,” he wrote on Thursday.
Voters who like Mr. Yang and his upbeat imaginative and prescient for town’s restoration won’t know Mr. Tusk’s identify. His closeness to large enterprise and connections to Mr. Bloomberg have led some Democrats to fret that Mr. Yang will embrace a Wall Avenue-centric imaginative and prescient for New York Metropolis.
“Tusk spent the previous decade defending billionaires and company pursuits,” stated Monica Klein, a progressive political strategist. “If Yang received, there’s no query his agenda would mirror Tusk’s — and most New Yorkers aren’t on the lookout for a mayor that can cater to the rich and companies.”
Mr. Tusk’s agency has proudly represented purchasers whose insurance policies run afoul of Democratic orthodoxy: the hard-charging police union; a Republican who ran for New York legal professional basic; and the organizers of a marketing campaign to protect an admissions examination that has resulted within the enrollment of solely tiny numbers of Black and Latino college students in New York Metropolis’s elite excessive colleges.
Mr. Yang stated he wouldn’t be influenced by his strategist. “I selected Tusk as a result of they’re consultants in NYC politics,” he stated in a press release relayed by Chris Coffey, who works for each Mr. Yang and Tusk Methods. “New Yorkers know I’ve all the time been unbiased and have my very own imaginative and prescient — I wrote a e-book in 2018 that spells out my agenda fairly clearly. If elected, my choices will probably be mine alone.”
Mr. Yang has accomplished little to allay issues over conflicts of curiosity. He doesn’t have his personal workplace — his staffers earn a living from home when they aren’t within the discipline — however he makes use of Mr. Tusk’s workplace for storage. He has additionally repeatedly embraced stances that may profit each Mr. Tusk’s investments and his lobbying purchasers.
Mr. Yang has lengthy been a fan of Fowl, the e-scooter firm that Mr. Tusk has an possession stake in and that’s collaborating in a city-governed program within the Bronx.
“Each from time to time a Fowl scooter appears like the best invention on the planet,” Mr. Yang tweeted in June 2019, earlier than Mr. Tusk spoke to him about working for mayor.
Different concepts appear to have sprung extra instantly from the Tusk-Yang mind-meld.
One in every of Mr. Yang’s very first proposals after saying his run for mayor was that town ought to put a on line casino on Governors Island. Mr. Yang argued town may reap monetary profit from the on line casino, with the additional advantage of creating New York Metropolis “extra enjoyable.” Critics instantly pounced, noting that the island in New York Harbor is a peaceable respite so ill-suited to playing halls that they’re expressly forbidden within the island’s deed.
Mr. Yang didn’t again down. Nor did Mr. Tusk, whose curiosity in on line casino funding is longstanding.
In 2018, his on line casino administration firm, then known as Ivory Gaming, mounted a bid for a on line casino web site in Las Vegas. He instructed Politico that if he received, he would put an ax-throwing facility contained in the on line casino. The deal didn’t transfer ahead.
Ivory Gaming in the end spawned IG Acquisition Corp., a playing concern that reportedly raised $300 million within the public markets to put money into the business. Paperwork filed with the Securities and Trade Fee point out that Mr. Tusk’s publicly traded shell company is aiming to determine “companies within the leisure, gaming and hospitality industries with an enterprise worth exceeding $750 million, with specific emphasis on companies which are well-positioned for development.”
The on line casino problem in New York Metropolis is poised to turn into a significant one for the following mayor. Beginning in 2023, the state is anticipated to open bidding on three on line casino licenses for the realm in and round New York Metropolis.
A spokesman for Mr. Tusk stated he would haven’t any function in a New York Metropolis on line casino and by no means had supposed to.
In his Medium assertion, Mr. Tusk stated his involvement in Mr. Yang’s marketing campaign stemmed from the necessity for innovation after the pandemic.
“We took on this marketing campaign as a result of we seemed on the disaster going through this metropolis, seemed on the choices of viable candidates and knew we may do so much higher,” he stated.
His marketing campaign additionally pointed to different candidates who’re working with consulting corporations which are concerned in lobbying — a apply lately highlighted by Metropolis & State.
Perceive the N.Y.C. Mayoral Race
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The corporations embody Pitta LLP, which is working for Eric Adams’s marketing campaign and has ties to lobbyists who symbolize Wheels Labs, an e-bike firm, and the unions for police detectives and transit employees; and International Technique Group, which is working for Scott Stringer’s marketing campaign and whose purchasers embody RXR Realty, a outstanding actual property firm, and MGM Resorts, in line with state information.
Mr. Tusk’s investments go nicely past the playing business. His enterprise capital agency has additionally invested in three corporations dealing within the expertise underpinning Bitcoin. The state regulates e-coin, however the metropolis could nicely have an curiosity within the sector underneath a Yang mayoralty, too.
“As mayor of NYC — the world’s monetary capital — I’d put money into making town a hub for BTC and different cryptocurrencies,” Mr. Yang tweeted in February, apparently referring to Bitcoin.
Mr. Tusk’s enterprise capital agency has additionally invested in Latch, an app-based door-locking firm that critics argue will enable landlords to surveil their tenants’ actions and preserve observe of their guests. Mr. Tusk’s consulting agency, Tusk Methods, lobbied in opposition to latest efforts within the Metropolis Council to restrict the corporate’s operations in New York Metropolis.
A number of of the Tusk lobbyists listed as working for Latch in New York State’s lobbying database are additionally working for Mr. Yang’s marketing campaign, together with Mr. Coffey, one in all Mr. Yang’s marketing campaign managers; Mr. Yang’s senior adviser Eric Soufer; and his press secretary, Jake Sporn. The Yang marketing campaign has been paying Tusk Methods about $33,000 per thirty days.
“First, you don’t need a mayor whose workers are the identical because the lobbyists for for-profit companies with pursuits earlier than town,” stated Brad Lander, a candidate for comptroller who’s the sponsor of a Metropolis Council invoice that may restrict Latch’s operations. “You positive don’t need a mayor with a workers who usually are not solely workers of the lobbyists, however workers of the for-profit pursuits themselves.”
Mr. Tusk’s work historical past is as unconventional because the marketing campaign he’s now working for Mr. Yang. He grew up on Lengthy Island and began out dealing with press for the famously idiosyncratic Parks Division commissioner Henry Stern, earlier than becoming a member of Senator Schumer’s workplace. From there, he labored as an aide to Mr. Bloomberg.
On the age of 29, as Mr. Tusk recounts in his e-book, a buddy from his Schumer days requested if he needed to work as a deputy governor underneath Mr. Blagojevich, who would later find yourself in jail for soliciting bribes and making an attempt to profit from filling President Barack Obama’s former Senate seat.
Mr. Tusk was uncertain if he had the requisite talent set for the job, however he was good and hard-working and realized a lesson he discovered so profound that he used it as a chapter title in his e-book: “Not Being Certified for a Job Shouldn’t Cease You.”
Mr. Blagojevich was bored with governing, and Mr. Tusk has stated that he primarily ran the state. Mr. Tusk testified at Mr. Blagojevich’s corruption trial in 2010 and stated he steered away from any wrongdoing.
Mr. Tusk went on to work for Lehman Brothers, leaving the financial institution simply earlier than its collapse. He ran Mr. Bloomberg’s re-election drive in 2009, through which the incumbent mayor, even with an enormous marketing campaign price range of $100 million, barely prevailed over the Democratic New York Metropolis comptroller, William C. Thompson.
Then he jumped into the world of political consulting and lobbying, working to increase constitution colleges. His agency lobbies for the Schooling Fairness Marketing campaign, a corporation funded by the cosmetics billionaire Ronald Lauder that desires to maintain the admissions check for selective excessive colleges. The agency emphasised that it stopped representing the police union earlier than it endorsed Donald J. Trump.
Mr. Tusk started discussing the race with Mr. Yang in early November; Kevin Sheekey, who ran Mr. Bloomberg’s presidential marketing campaign, had launched Mr. Tusk to Mr. Yang’s marketing campaign supervisor, Zach Graumann, not lengthy after Mr. Yang dropped out of the presidential race.
Mr. Tusk had been on the lookout for a like-minded mayoral candidate for years. In 2017, he tried — unsuccessfully — to recruit a candidate to run in opposition to Mayor Invoice de Blasio.
Within the Medium publish, Mr. Tusk famous that he had not labored on a mayoral marketing campaign since his Bloomberg days, including that he determined to get entangled now as a result of he needed to guard New York and his pursuits there, together with his plans to open a bookstore and podcast studio on the Decrease East Facet.
“Clearly, that is taking place as a result of their candidates and campaigns are behind within the polls they usually’re on the lookout for something that may stick,” he wrote, earlier than including parenthetically, “I’m accustomed to how these items works.”