The collision of wealth and ideology in New York City’s turbulent mayoral race reached a new pitch this week after Elizabeth Simons, daughter of the late hedge fund titan James Simons, made a $250,000 contribution to the pro-Zohran Mamdani super PAC New Yorkers for Lower Costs.
The gift, revealed in campaign finance disclosures, represents the single largest donation received by the socialist nominee’s outside support group, which has already amassed close to $2 million from nearly 300 contributions. As The New York Post reported on Wednesday, the Simons gift not only bolsters Mamdani’s longshot mayoral bid but also underscores the paradox of billionaires’ heirs fueling the campaign of a candidate who has openly called for the abolition of billionaires altogether.
Elizabeth Simons serves as chairwoman of the board of directors of the Heising-Simons Foundation, the philanthropic vehicle she co-founded with her husband, Mark Heising. The foundation, headquartered in California, has poured hundreds of millions into progressive causes ranging from climate research to criminal justice reform.
The fortune behind that largesse traces directly back to her late father, James Simons, founder of the hedge fund Renaissance Technologies and one of the most successful investors in modern history. With a net worth estimated at $31.4 billion at the time of his death last year, Simons was as celebrated in philanthropy as he was in finance.
He and his wife Marilyn gave more than $1 billion to Stony Brook University, part of the SUNY system and the school where he had once been a mathematics professor. That landmark donation—the largest ever to an American public university—cemented the Simons name as a philanthropic powerhouse.
