Won't You Be His Neighbor?

Mayor Francis Suarez goes on a charm offensive to lure techies—and Elon Musk—to Miami

- By Amanda Kolson Hurley and Rodney Jefferson

The viral moment that turned Francis Suarez, the mayor of Miami, into a tech recruiter happened on Dec. 4, shortly before 9 p.m. Miami time. On Twitter, Delian Asparouhov, a Founders Fund venture capitalist, had mused: “ok guys hear me out, what if we move silicon valley to miami”?

“How can I help?” Suarez responded.

His tweet started bounding across the internet. Suarez printed T-shirts with the phrase, in Miami Vice pink and blue. A venture capitalist with Miami ties, Shervin Pishevar, papered a billboard with the mayor’s face and a pitch— “Thinking about moving to Miami? DM me.”—on the Bay Area stretch of U.S. Highway 101. Suarez even started a YouTube talk show, Cafecito Talk, where he interviews Miami boosters and would-be migrants. (Cafecito is a Spanish word for coffee.)

Given that he’s become Miami’s most visible hype man—tweeting with Elon Musk at 3 a.m. about boring a tunnel under the Miami River—you’d never guess he has a relatively powerless job. Suarez, 43, doesn’t personally control a budget or a major workforce and dedicates significant time to his side gig as a real estate lawyer. That’s a relatively common arrangement in South Florida, where the tiered government structure generally means that the county mayor reigns supreme. And in Miami, a city manager, not the mayor, directs day-to-day municipal operations. Yet Suarez has slipped into so many buzzy narratives in the past year that his fame has become a power unto itself.