In an op-ed for Zocalo Public Square on February 6th, Mitchell Moss, the head of New York University’s Director of Rudin Center for Transportation Policy & Management, writes that Donald Trump’s political ambitions were fueled by the resentment and disdain he received from elite New York social circles.

Moss claims that Trump, the son of a Queens real estate developer, was met with derision due to his harsh style and lack of credentials or business acumen as he began developing real estate properties in Manhattan. Moss writes, “His failure to make it into the upper echelon of New York’s business community is what drove him to run for president, and that, “Trump didn’t care about being right or smart or ethical, only about being known.”

This contempt on behalf of New York’s business and philanthropic communities, Moss claims, led Trump to seek attention in the city’s tabloid papers. According to Moss, New York papers “Loved to feature Trump, in stories about his three marriages and his calls for proof of President Obama’s birth. The front page of the New York Post is the equivalent of a daily billboard, which the local radio and television news programs treat as raw material for their evening programs. Trump was a master at getting the New York Post to cover his words, his wives, and his fights with Ed Koch and Barack Obama. He became famous as someone New Yorkers loved to ridicule.”

Now that Trump’s political ambitions have paid off, “News reports now have him marveling that New Yorkers who once wouldn’t give him the time of day—like the former Goldman Sachs chieftain Gary Cohn—now work for him.”