JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon cautioned in his annual shareholder letter that excessive taxes could prompt companies to relocate from New York City. He highlighted his firm's shift, now employing more staff in Dallas than at its New York headquarters. Dimon framed the issue as economic necessity amid rising costs.
In the letter released on Monday, Dimon noted that JPMorgan Chase has cut its New York City headcount from 30,000 to 24,000 over the past decade, while growing its Texas workforce from 26,000 to 32,000. Dallas now surpasses New York as the bank's largest employment hub. He acknowledged New York's enduring appeal for financial talent but identified high costs as a major hurdle for competitiveness. “No city or company or country has a divine right to success,” Dimon wrote. “People like to make this a moral or loyalty issue, but it is not.” Dimon argued that higher taxes erode returns on capital, drawing parallels to the 1970s when nearly half of New York City's 125 Fortune 500 companies departed, contributing to a fiscal crisis and near-bankruptcy in 1975. He attributed most exits to the high price of doing business there. The trend extends beyond JPMorgan. Wells Fargo opened an 850,000-square-foot campus in Texas in 2025, and Goldman Sachs is building a $500 million facility in Dallas' Victory Park, helping earn the city the moniker “Y’all Street.” Dimon's comments coincide with newly elected Mayor Zohran Mamdani's push, less than a month into office, for higher property taxes to close a multibillion-dollar budget gap and urging Governor Kathy Hochul to lift the corporate tax rate from 7.25% to 11.5%, plus a 2% levy on incomes over $1 million. Dimon has reached out to Mamdani since his election, though the mayor shows no signs of altering his stance.
