Vivek Ramaswamy

Vivek Ramaswamy
Vivek Ganapathy Ramaswamy (born August 9, 1985) is an American entrepreneur and presidential candidate. He founded Roivant Sciences, a pharmaceutical company, in 2014. In February 2023, Ramaswamy declared his candidacy for the Republican Party nomination in the 2024 United States presidential election.
Ramaswamy was born in Cincinnati to Indian immigrant parents. He graduated from Harvard College with a bachelor's degree in biology and later earned a J.D. from Yale Law School. Ramaswamy worked as an investment partner at a hedge fund before founding Roivant Sciences. He also co-founded an investment firm, Strive Asset Management.
Ramaswamy claims the United States is in the middle of a national identity crisis precipitated by what he calls "new secular religions like COVID-ism, climate-ism, and gender ideology". He is also a critic of environmental, social, and corporate governance initiatives (ESG). In August 2023, Forbes estimated Ramaswamy's net worth at more than $950 million; his wealth comes from biotech and financial businesses.
Early life and education
Vivek Ganapathy Ramaswamy was born on August 9, 1985, in Cincinnati, Ohio, to Indian Hindu immigrant parents. His family are Tamil-speaking Brahmins from Kerala. His father, V. Ganapathy Ramaswamy, a graduate of the National Institute of Technology Calicut, worked as an engineer and patent attorney for General Electric, while his mother, Geetha Ramaswamy, a graduate of the Mysore Medical College & Research Institute, worked as a geriatric psychiatrist. His parents immigrated from Palakkad district in Kerala, where the family had an ancestral home in a traditional agraharam in the town of Vadakkencherry.
Ramaswamy was raised in Ohio. Growing up, Ramaswamy often attended the local Hindu temple in Dayton with his family. His conservative Christian piano teacher, who gave him private lessons from elementary through high school, also influenced his social views. He spent many summer vacations traveling to India with his parents. In high school, Ramaswamy was a nationally ranked tennis player.
Education
Ramaswamy attended public schools through eighth grade. He then attended Cincinnati's St. Xavier High School, a Catholic school affiliated with the Jesuit order, graduating as valedictorian in 2003.
In 2007, Ramaswamy graduated from Harvard University with a Bachelor of Arts, summa cum laude, in biology, and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. At Harvard, he gained a reputation as a brash and confident libertarian. He was a member of the Harvard Political Union, becoming its president. He told The Harvard Crimson that he considered himself a contrarian who loved to debate. While in college, he performed Eminem covers and libertarian-themed rap music under the stage name and alter ego "Da Vek", and was an intern for the hedge fund Amaranth Advisors and the investment bank Goldman Sachs. He wrote his senior thesis on the ethical questions raised by creating human-animal chimeras and earned a Bowdoin Prize.
In 2011, Ramaswamy was awarded a post-graduate fellowship by the Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans, which he used to attend Yale Law School. Later, Ramaswamy said that by the time he attended Yale, he was already wealthy from his activities in the finance, pharmaceutical, and biotech industries; he said in 2023 that he had a net worth of around $15 million before graduating from law school. At Yale he befriended future U.S. Senator J. D. Vance. He earned a Juris Doctor in 2013. In a 2023 interview, Ramaswamy said that he was a member of the campus Jewish intellectual discussion society Shabtai while a law student.
Career
Early career
In 2007, Ramaswamy and Travis May co-founded Campus Venture Network, which published a private social networking website for university students who aspired to launch a business. The company was sold to the nonprofit Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation in 2009.
Ramaswamy worked at the hedge fund QVT Financial from 2007 to 2014. He was a partner and co-managed the firm's biotech portfolio. QVT's biotech investments under Ramaswamy included stakes in Palatin Technologies, Concert Pharmaceuticals, Pharmasset, and Martin Shkreli's Retrophin. In a 2023 speech and in his book Woke Inc., Ramaswamy called Shkreli, whose company had greatly increased the cost of a life-saving drug, both "brilliant" and a pathological liar. He criticized the U.S. Department of Justice for prosecuting Shkreli, calling his fraud a victimless crime.
Roivant Sciences and subsidiaries
In 2014, Ramaswamy founded the biotechnology firm Roivant Sciences; the "Roi" in the company's name refers to return on investment. The company was incorporated in Bermuda, a tax haven, and received almost $100 million in start-up capital from QVT and other investors, including RA Capital Management, Visium Asset Management, and the hedge fund managers D. E. Shaw & Co. and Falcon Edge Capital. Roivant's strategy was to purchase patents from larger pharmaceutical companies for drugs that had not yet been successfully developed, and then bring them to the market. The company created numerous subsidiaries, including Dermavant (focused on dermatology), Urovant (focused on urological disease), and China-based Sinovant and Cytovant, focused on the Asian market.
In 2015, Ramaswamy raised $360 million for the Roivant subsidiary Axovant Sciences in an attempt to market intepirdine as a drug for Alzheimer's disease. In December 2014, Axovant purchased the patent for intepirdine from GlaxoSmithKline (where the drug had failed four previous clinical trials) for $5 million, a small sum in the industry. Ramaswamy appeared on the cover of Forbes in 2015, and said his company would "be the highest return on investment endeavor ever taken up in the pharmaceutical industry." Before new clinical trials began, he engineered an initial public offering (IPO) in Axovant. Axovant became a "Wall Street darling" and raised $315 million in its IPO. The company's market value initially soared to almost $3 billion, although at the time it only had eight employees, including Ramaswamy's brother and mother. Ramaswamy took a massive payout after selling a portion of his shares in Roivant to Viking Global Investors. He claimed more than $37 million in capital gains in 2015. Ramaswamy said his company would be the "Berkshire Hathaway of drug development" and touted the drug as a "tremendous" opportunity that "could help millions" of patients, prompting some criticism that he was overpromising.
In September 2017, the company announced that intepirdine had failed in its large clinical trial. The company's value plunged; it lost 75% in one day and continued to decline afterward. Shareholders who lost money included various institutional investors, such as the California State Teachers' Retirement System pension fund. Ramaswamy was insulated from much of Axovant's losses because he held his stake through Roivant. The company abandoned intepirdine. In 2018, Ramaswamy said he had no regrets about how the company handled the drug; in subsequent years, he said he regretted the outcome but was annoyed by criticism of the company. Axovant attempted to reinvent itself as a gene therapy company, but dissolved in 2023.
In 2017, Ramaswamy struck a deal with Masayoshi Son in which SoftBank invested $1.1 billion in Roivant. In 2019, Roivant sold its stake in five subsidiaries (or "vants"), including Enzyvant, to Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma; Ramaswamy made $175 million in capital gains from the sale. The deal also gave Sumitomo Dainippon a 10% stake in Roivant.
While campaigning for the presidency, Ramaswamy called himself a "scientist" and said, "I developed a number of medicines." His undergraduate degree is in biology, but he was never a scientist; his role in the biotechnology industry was that of a financier and entrepreneur.
In January 2021, Ramaswamy stepped down as CEO of Roivant Sciences and assumed the role of executive chairman. In 2021, after he resigned as CEO, Roivant was listed on the Nasdaq via a reverse merger with Montes Archimedes Acquisition Corp, a special purpose acquisition vehicle. In February 2023, Ramaswamy stepped down as chair of Roivant to focus on his presidential campaign.
Ramaswamy remains the sixth-largest shareholder of Roivant, retaining a 7.17% stake. Roivant has never been profitable.
Roivant Social Ventures
In 2020, when Ramaswamy was CEO of Roivant Sciences, the company established a nonprofit social-impact arm, Roivant Social Ventures (RSV), with his support. An earlier iteration of RSV, the Roivant Foundation, was created in 2018. Although Ramaswamy's presidential campaign centers on opposing corporate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) initiatives, RSV worked in support of pro-DEI and ESG initiatives, including promoting health equity and diversity within the biopharma and biotech industries. While campaigning, Ramaswamy has downplayed his role in creating and overseeing RSV.
Other ventures
In 2020, Ramaswamy co-founded Chapter Medicare, a Medicare navigation platform. He served on the Ohio COVID-19 Response Team.
He was chairman of OnCore Biopharma, a position he maintained at Tekmira Pharmaceuticals when the two companies merged in March 2015. He also was chair of the board of Arbutus Biopharma, a Canadian firm.
Activism and Strive Asset Management
In early 2022, together with his high school friend Anson Frericks, Ramaswamy co-founded Strive Asset Management, a Columbus, Ohio-based asset management firm. The firm raised about $20 million from outside investors, including Peter Thiel, J. D. Vance, and Bill Ackman.
Strive has branded itself as "anti-woke" and its funds as "anti-ESG"; Ramaswamy has claimed that the largest asset managers, such as BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard, mix business with ESG politics to the detriment of their funds' investors.
Pension fund managers take account of ESG in the assessment of long-term risk, including climate risks, when making portfolio decisions. Ramaswamy has crusaded against ESG and emphasizes the doctrine of shareholder primacy, famously articulated by Milton Friedman. In his book Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America's Social Justice Scam and elsewhere, he has depicted private corporations' socially conscious investing as simultaneously ineffective and the greatest threat to American society. He published a second book, Nation of Victims: Identity Politics, the Death of Merit, and the Path Back to Excellence, in September 2022, a few months before announcing his presidential candidacy.
Strive's flagship fund, the exchange-traded fund DRLL, launched in 2022 as an "anti-woke" energy sector index fund. Ramaswamy said that Strive would push energy companies to drill for more oil, frack for more natural gas, and "do whatever allows them to be most successful over the long run without regard to political, social, cultural or environmental agendas."
In October 2022, Ramaswamy held closed-door meetings with South Carolina lawmakers in a session arranged by state treasurer Curtis Loftis; during the meetings, Ramaswamy pitched Strive to manage South Carolina pension funds. In June 2023, after The Post and Courier reported on the meetings, the sessions were criticized as a form of unregistered lobbying; Ramaswamy's campaign manager denied any impropriety.
Ramaswamy was Strive's executive chairman before resigning in February 2023 to focus on his presidential campaign.
Presidential campaign (2023–present)
Early political involvement
Ramaswamy said that he voted for the Libertarian Party presidential nominee in 2004 but did not vote in the presidential elections in 2008, 2012, or 2016. He described himself as apolitical during this period. He supported Donald Trump in the 2020 election.
In November 2021, Ramaswamy registered to vote in Franklin County, Ohio, as "unaffiliated", but described himself as a Republican.
Ramaswamy has made political contributions to both Democrats and Republicans. In 2016, he donated $2,700 to the campaign of Dena Grayson, a Florida Democrat running for Congress. From 2020 to 2023, he donated $30,000 to the Ohio Republican Party.
Ramaswamy considered running in the 2022 U.S. Senate election in Ohio.
Campaign
On February 21, 2023, Ramaswamy declared his candidacy for the Republican nomination for president of the United States in 2024 on Tucker Carlson Tonight. He publicly released 20 years of his individual income tax returns and called upon his rivals in the primary to do the same. His fortune has made up the vast majority of his campaign's fundraising. From February to July 2023, Ramaswamy loaned his campaign more than $15 million; his campaign ended the second quarter of 2023 with about $9 million in cash on hand. His fundraising lagged far behind Trump's and Ron DeSantis's, but ahead of most of the other Republican primary candidates'.
During his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, Ramaswamy has sought to appeal to evangelical Christian right and Christian nationalist voters, an important part of the Republican base, some of whom are reluctant or unwilling to support a non-Christian presidential candidate such as Ramaswamy, who is Hindu. In campaign stops and interviews, Ramaswamy has criticized secularism, saying that the U.S. was founded on Christian values or Judeo-Christian values; that he shares those values; and that he believes in one God.
While campaigning, Ramaswamy has called himself an "unapologetic American nationalist"; he has often attacked DeSantis but has avoided directly criticizing Trump.
In May 2023, Ramaswamy's campaign admitted that he had paid an editor to alter his Wikipedia biography before announcing his candidacy but denied that the payment for edits was politically motivated. The edits to the Wikipedia biography removed references to Ramaswamy's postgraduate fellowship from the Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans, as well as his involvement with the Ohio COVID-19 Response Team. Paul and Daisy Soros are the elder brother and sister-in-law, respectively, of businessman and social activist George Soros, who has been the subject of numerous conspiracy theories among American conservatives. Ramaswamy's campaign denied attempting to "scrub" his Wikipedia page and argued the edits were revisions of "factual distortions."
Political positions
Although they are running against each other for the 2024 Republican nomination, Ramaswamy vocally supports Trump. Ramaswamy condemned the January 6 attack on the Capitol, but argued that social media bans on Trump violate the First Amendment. After Trump was indicted on federal criminal charges in 2023, Ramaswamy immediately rallied behind him. He promises to pardon Trump if elected president. He has also promised to pardon Julian Assange, Ross Ulbricht, and Edward Snowden. He suggested that he might consider Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as a possible running mate.
Ramaswamy opposes affirmative action, and has vowed to rescind Executive Order 11246. He has argued that American-style capitalism provides an antidote to India's caste system. He asserts that critical race theory has indoctrinated students in public schools.
Ramaswamy opposes abortion, terming it "murder". He supports state-level six-week abortion bans, with exceptions for rape, incest, and danger to the woman's life, but opposes a federal ban.
He has called the LGBTQ movement a "cult". He said through a spokesman that he believes same-sex marriage is "settled precedent" but supports broad restrictions on the rights of transgender Americans, and has used anti-trans rhetoric.
Ramaswamy has pledged, if elected, to rule by executive fiat to a degree unprecedented among modern U.S. presidents. He has pledged to fire 75% of federal employees; dismantle civil service protections, making federal employment at-will; and abolish at least five federal agencies, including the Education Department, FBI, ATF, IRS, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and USDA's Food and Nutrition Service. He has called the Food and Drug Administration "corrupt" and vowed to "expose and ultimately gut" the FDA. He has asserted that the president has the unilateral power to abolish agencies by executive order, although executive agencies and departments are created by statute, and under the Constitution, Congress has the power of the purse. He has called for an eight-year term for all government employees and pledged to revoke Executive Order 10988, an order issued by President John F. Kennedy that gives federal employees the right to collectively bargain. He proposes to repeal the federal law that requires presidents to spend all the money Congress appropriates.
Ramaswamy favors raising the standard voting age to 25, which would require repealing the 26th Amendment to the Constitution. This proposal would disenfranchise a portion of the U.S. electorate; nearly 9% of voters in the 2020 general election were under 25. Ramaswamy has also said he would like to end birthright citizenship. He has said he would allow citizens between 18 and 24 to vote only if they are enlisted in the military, work as first responders, or pass the civics test required for naturalization. He supports making Election Day a federal holiday, while eliminating Juneteenth (which he has called "useless" and "redundant") as a federal holiday.
Ramaswamy has pledged to "use our military to annihilate the Mexican drug cartels". He favors federal legalization of marijuana. He has taken no public position on the 2017 Trump tax cuts. He has expressed support for an inheritance tax, and has called for ending the Federal Reserve's dual mandate.
On the campaign trail, Ramaswamy has dabbled in political conspiracy theories, such as asking whether federal agents were on the planes that hit the Twin Towers during the September 11 attacks.
Ramaswamy favors "major concessions to Russia" in the Russo-Ukrainian War. He favors ending U.S. military aid to Ukraine, excluding Ukraine from NATO, and allowing Russia to occupy regions of Ukraine in exchange for an agreement that Russia end its alliance with China. He called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a "bully". He has expressed support for Taiwanese independence, and floated the idea of "putting a gun in every Taiwanese household" to deter an invasion by China, but said the U.S. should not militarily defend Taiwan from Chinese attack after the U.S. has achieved "semiconductor independence", which he pledged to achieve by 2028.
Although Ramaswamy has said he is not a climate denier, he said in a Republican primary debate that "the climate change agenda is a hoax" and asserted, falsely, that "more people are dying from climate policies than actual climate change." At other times, Ramaswamy has said that he accepts that burning fossil fuels causes climate change, but called global climate change "not entirely bad"; said that "people should be proud to live a high-carbon lifestyle"; and said that the U.S. should "drill, frack, burn coal". He criticizes what he calls the "climate cult" and said that as president, he would "abandon the anticarbon framework as it exists" and halt "any mandate to measure carbon dioxide". In 2022, he urged Chevron to increase oil production and criticized its support for a carbon tax. Ramaswamy's company holds a 0.02% stake in Chevron. Ramaswamy opposes subsidies for electric vehicles.
Personal life
Ramaswamy's wife, Apoorva Ramaswamy (née Tewari), is a medical doctor; he met her while studying law at Yale, where she was studying medicine. They married in 2015 and have two sons. Ramaswamy has a younger brother, Shankar, who worked for him at Axovant and later co-founded Kriya Therapeutics, a biopharmaceutical company.
Ramaswamy is a monotheistic Hindu. According to relatives, he is fluent in Tamil and understands (but does not speak) Malayalam. He is a vegetarian. In 2020 Ramaswamy called himself an animal rights activist, writing that it is "wrong to kill sentient animals for culinary pleasure."
In 2023, Ramaswamy's campaign advisor said his net worth was more than $1 billion; Forbes estimated it at more than $950 million. He lived in Manhattan as of 2016. As of 2021, he owned a house in Butler County, Ohio, but in 2023, the only real estate he reported owning was a house in Columbus, Ohio, in Franklin County. A 2023 Politico profile of Ramaswamy mentions him living in the Columbus suburb of Upper Arlington.
Published works
References
External links
2024 presidential campaign website
1985 births
Living people
21st-century American writers
21st-century American businesspeople
21st-century Hindus
American company founders
American conspiracy theorists
American Hindus
American male writers of Indian descent
American nationalists
American people of Indian Tamil descent
American people of Malayali descent
Asian conservatism in the United States
Businesspeople from Cincinnati
People from Upper Arlington, Ohio
Candidates in the 2024 United States presidential election
Chief executives in the pharmaceutical industry
Conflict-of-interest editing on Wikipedia
Critics of Black Lives Matter
Harvard University alumni
New York (state) Republicans
Paul & Daisy Soros Fellows
St. Xavier High School (Ohio) alumni
Yale Law School alumni
Trumpism