Despite Amazon's NYC HQ2 retreat, tech giants like Google, Facebook, and even Amazon still seek to rent millions of square feet and employ thousands in New York
Facebook, Google, Uber and Amazon embrace Manhattan as an East Coast hub — Big technology companies are doubling … Tweets: @mkink , @rakeshlobster , @profgalloway , @aoc , @lawrence , @gardmaf , @technyc , and @anandwrites Tweets: Michael Kink / @mkink : Google, Facebook, Uber, and Amazon — yes, Amazon — accelerate NYC expansions, adding jobs with NO public subsidies or tax giveaways https://www.wsj.com/... Rakesh Agrawal / @rakeshlobster : Yup. Companies go where talent is. Extorting tax breaks is a nice to have. https://twitter.com/... Scott Galloway / @profgalloway : Big tech moving into NYC - somehow without a big show & tax incentives https://www.wsj.com/... Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez / @aoc : Well, just as we said, Amazon quietly came to NYC without needing a dime of public money or special tax treatment. The jobs came without the cost. NYC is an attractive place to locate on its own (incl. public infra!), w/o billions of dollars in corporate giveaway “incentives.” https://twitter.com/... Lawrence O'Donnell / @lawrence : No one should be surprised that Amazon is expanding in NYC without any gifts from local government. Except all the economics wizards who said Amazon would never do that. @AOC was right. Again. https://twitter.com/... Matthew Gardner / @gardmaf : Months after Amazon cancelled its HQ2 plans in New York City, the Wall Street Journal finds that NYC is, in fact, experiencing a tech investment and employment boom, and that this boom includes... Amazon. https://www.wsj.com/... @technyc : Tech-sector jobs have increased at a faster clip than the city's overall job growth. With unparalleled access to the right talent, it's a no-brainer that companies of all sizes are eager to set up shop in New York: https://www.wsj.com/... Anand Giridharadas / @anandwrites : New York played poker with Amazon, and New York won. https://twitter.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
The arc here runs from the $1.5B-plus incentive package New York offered Amazon for its Queens headquarters, through the political opposition that killed it, to the state budget director's open letter calling the pullout a 'tremendous loss' with a claimed 9-to-1 return. That fight framed tech expansion as something cities had to buy.
This reporting flips the frame: months after the retreat, Amazon itself is back in the market for millions of square feet of Manhattan space alongside Google, Facebook, and Uber — hiring thousands with no subsidies attached. The coverage points toward New York as an East Coast rival to Silicon Valley with tens of thousands of tech staff, suggesting the talent pool, not the tax break, is what draws these companies.
First-order effects
- Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Uber are directly expanding Manhattan footprints and headcount right now, and Manhattan landlords gain tenants paying full freight rather than incentive-discounted rates.
- New York officials who fought the HQ2 deal get jobs arriving anyway — but with zero negotiated community benefits, the exact trade-off critics of the original package said was never worth making.
Second-order effects
- The episode undercuts the leverage behind incentive bidding wars like the one economists warned would divert taxpayer funds from education and infrastructure: if companies locate where talent already is, subsidies become 'nice to have,' as one commentator put it.
- Runner-up cities from the HQ2 contest — Crystal City, Dallas and others named in late-stage talks — face competition for tech tenants against a city that just demonstrated it can win expansions without paying for them.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the standard playbook of trading tax giveaways for corporate relocations weakens structurally, shifting bargaining power toward cities with dense talent pools and away from those competing on price.
- New York's growth into a self-sustaining second tech hub points toward a more multipolar industry geography, with East Coast concentration reducing Silicon Valley's monopoly on top-tier tech employment.
The trend: Big tech's location decisions are decoupling from public subsidy packages, with talent-dense cities like New York winning expansions on their own gravity.