Does a real story report that actor George Clooney expects to be exempt from New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani's "wealth tax"? No, that's not true: The claim originated on a Facebook page known for posting satirical content. The page carries the disclaimer, "We post only SATIRE stories. Nothing on this page is Real," and describes itself as a source of satire, humor and witty remarks.
The claim appeared in a post and image (archived here) by the @Sunkized01 account on X on Aug. 17, 2026. It read:
Talk about stupid
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Image source: post by @Sunkized01 on X.)
The text of the post reads:
George Clooney's $25+ million penthouse in NYC is technically his 'second home,' because whenever he comes to NYC to shoot or direct, he uses this residence--and therefore it falls under Mamdani's wealth tax.
Mr. Clooney is apparently very upset about Mamdani's wealth tax. He said in a podcast that he does a lot of charity work and considers himself exempt from the wealth tax, but he still received a letter from the Mamdani government demanding that he pay it.
Mr. Clooney said, 'I voted for Mamdani to help out the poor and was ready to bear a little communism, but it's gotten way out of hand.'
The post that originated the claim appears to have come from The Satire liners Facebook page (archived here), which predates the X post by a day. As suggested by its name, it is a satire page. The page's intro states, "We post only SATIRE stories. Nothing on this page is Real":
(Image source: The Satire liners Facebook page.)
Original post
The original post (archived here) appeared on Facebook on Aug. 16, 2026. It read:
George Clooney's $25 million penthouse in NYC is technically his 'second home,' because whenever he comes to NYC to shoot or direct, he uses this residence--and therefore it falls under Mamdani's wealth tax.
Mr. Clooney is apparently very upset about Mamdani's wealth tax. He said in a podcast that he does a lot of charity work and considers himself exempt from the wealth tax, but he still received a letter from the Mamdani government demanding that he pay it.
Mr. Clooney said, 'I voted for Mamdani to help out the poor and was ready to bear a little communism, but it's gotten way out of hand.'
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Image source: post by The Satire liners on Facebook.)
News searches
Lead Stories searched Google News (archived here) and Yahoo News (archived here) and did not find any matching reports about the claim from credible news outlets using the search terms: "Clooney," "Mamdani," "wealth tax" and "exempt."
