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Photographer: John Taggart/Bloomberg Photographer: John Taggart/Bloomberg

Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders are taking a victory lap after Amazon.com Inc. and other technology giants leased millions of square feet of office space in New York City -- without the billions of dollars in government support that Amazon tried to negotiate earlier this year.

Amazon signed a lease on Friday for 335,000 square feet in the Hudson Yards neighborhood, enough space for more than 1,500 workers. The largest U.S. e-commerce company said it wasn’t getting tax benefits or other incentives.

A few weeks earlier, Facebook Inc. leased more than 1.5 million square feet in the city, and the social-networking giant is looking for 700,000 more square feet, according to the Wall Street Journal. Google is also in the midst of a major expansion in the city, adding thousands of employees in coming years.

The moves suggest that New York’s deep pool of talented workers is still attracting tech companies even after Amazon abandoned a much larger expansion in the area following fierce public criticism of almost $3 billion in tax breaks and subsidies promised to the company.

Me waiting on the haters to apologize after we were proven right on Amazon and saved the public billions https://t.co/AC64pG0nZI pic.twitter.com/xzCepkX4AV — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) December 6, 2019

Ocasio-Cortez, who represents parts of the Bronx and Queens, was a vocal critic of Amazon’s doomed HQ2 deal, and she tweeted that the company’s recent lease proved she was right.

Sanders, who has slammed Amazon for warehouse working conditions and the company’s low federal tax rate, weighed in this weekend, too.

Amazon was valued at $1 trillion but pays $0 in federal taxes. So imagine my surprise to find out it didn’t need taxpayers to fork over billions in corporate welfare to create jobs in New York. @AOC and many others fighting for working people were right. https://t.co/uUF0bA3Yaj — Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) December 7, 2019

​Their comments were pilloried by some on Twitter, who said that 1,500 Amazon jobs are a fraction of the company’s earlier plan to bring about 25,000 workers to the area.

Typical Bernard math! 23,500 more jobs that would’ve been created and 10 billion in revenue. But only 1,500 jobs is better. Yep, the bartender looks so amazing from this!! — Sarge Standanko (@Brennan28233109) December 7, 2019

Ocasio-Cortez responded by arguing that Amazon’s larger jobs pledge was longer-term and would have cost the city more.

You should know better. That 25k number was an unsubstantiated #, not a year 1 hiring figure. Nor was it a promise backed w/ consequences if it wasn’t met.



1,500 jobs off the bat is huge, & a much better deal than paying billions for a fairy tale that would’ve displaced many. — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) December 7, 2019