1. Vivek Ganapathy Ramaswamy was born on August 9,1985 and is an American entrepreneur and politician.
78 Facts About Vivek Ramaswamy
1. 2.
Vivek Ramaswamy founded Roivant Sciences, a biotech pharmaceutical company in 2014 and was its CEO till 2021.
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Vivek Ramaswamy finished fourth in the Iowa caucuses in January 2024 and withdrew his bid, thereupon endorsing Donald Trump for the 2024 presidential election.
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In February 2025, Vivek Ramaswamy launched his 2026 Ohio gubernatorial campaign and received an endorsement from President Trump.
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Vivek Ramaswamy was born in Cincinnati, Ohio to Indian immigrant parents.
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Vivek Ramaswamy graduated from Harvard University with a bachelor's degree in biology and later earned a degree from Yale Law School.
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Vivek Ramaswamy worked as an investment partner at a hedge fund before founding Roivant Sciences.
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Vivek Ramaswamy has stated that he sees the United States in the middle of a national identity crisis precipitated by what he calls "new secular religions like COVID-ism, climate-ism, and gender ideology".
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Vivek Ramaswamy is a critic of environmental, social, and corporate governance initiatives.
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Vivek Ganapathy Ramaswamy was born on August 9,1985, in Cincinnati, Ohio, to Indian Hindu immigrant parents.
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Vivek Ramaswamy's parents immigrated from Palakkad district in Kerala, where the family had an ancestral home in a traditional agraharam in the town of Vadakkencherry.
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Vivek Ramaswamy spent many summer vacations traveling to India with his parents.
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In high school, Vivek Ramaswamy was a nationally ranked tennis player.
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Vivek Ramaswamy then attended Cincinnati's St Xavier High School, a Catholic school affiliated with the Jesuit order, graduating as valedictorian in 2003.
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Vivek Ramaswamy was a member of the Harvard Political Union, becoming its president.
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Vivek Ramaswamy told The Harvard Crimson that he considered himself a contrarian who loved to debate.
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Vivek Ramaswamy wrote his senior thesis on the ethical questions raised by creating human-animal chimeras, earning him a Bowdoin Prize.
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Vivek Ramaswamy was sold to the nonprofit Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation in 2009.
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Vivek Ramaswamy worked at the hedge fund QVT Financial from 2007 to 2014.
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Vivek Ramaswamy was a partner and co-managed the firm's biotech portfolio.
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QVT's biotech investments under Vivek Ramaswamy included stakes in Palatin Technologies, Concert Pharmaceuticals, Pharmasset, and Martin Shkreli's Retrophin.
22.
Vivek Ramaswamy criticized the US Department of Justice for prosecuting Shkreli, calling his fraud a victimless crime.
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In 2014, Vivek Ramaswamy founded the biotechnology firm Roivant Sciences; the "Roi" in the company's name refers to return on investment.
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Vivek Ramaswamy created numerous subsidiaries, including Dermavant, Urovant, and China-based Sinovant and Cytovant, both focused on the Asian market.
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Vivek Ramaswamy took a massive payout after selling a portion of his shares in Roivant to Viking Global Investors.
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Vivek Ramaswamy was insulated from much of Axovant's losses because he held his stake through Roivant.
27.
In January 2021, Vivek Ramaswamy stepped down as CEO of Roivant Sciences and assumed the role of executive chairman.
28.
In February 2023, Vivek Ramaswamy stepped down as chair of Roivant to focus on his presidential campaign.
29.
In 2020, when Vivek Ramaswamy was CEO of Roivant Sciences, the company established a nonprofit social-impact arm, Roivant Social Ventures, with his support.
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In early 2022, together with his high school friend Anson Frericks, Vivek Ramaswamy co-founded Strive Asset Management, a Columbus, Ohio-based asset management firm.
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Vivek Ramaswamy has crusaded against ESG and emphasizes the doctrine of shareholder primacy, famously articulated by Milton Friedman.
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Vivek Ramaswamy 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.
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In October 2022, Vivek Ramaswamy held closed-door meetings with South Carolina lawmakers in a session arranged by state treasurer Curtis Loftis; during the meetings, Vivek Ramaswamy pitched Strive to manage South Carolina pension funds.
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Vivek Ramaswamy was Strive's executive chairman before resigning in February 2023 to focus on his presidential campaign.
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In 2020, Vivek Ramaswamy co-founded Chapter Medicare, a Medicare navigation platform.
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Vivek Ramaswamy was chairman of OnCore Biopharma, a position he maintained at Tekmira Pharmaceuticals when the two companies merged in March 2015.
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Vivek Ramaswamy was chair of the board of Arbutus Biopharma, a Canadian firm.
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Vivek Ramaswamy said that he voted for Michael Badnarik, the Libertarian Party presidential nominee in 2004, but did not vote in the presidential elections in 2008,2012, or 2016.
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In November 2021, Vivek Ramaswamy registered to vote in Franklin County, Ohio, as "unaffiliated", but described himself as a Republican.
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Vivek Ramaswamy has made political contributions to both Democrats and Republicans.
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Vivek Ramaswamy considered running in the 2022 US Senate election in Ohio.
42.
On February 21,2023, Vivek Ramaswamy declared his candidacy for the Republican nomination for president of the United States in 2024 on Tucker Carlson Tonight.
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Vivek Ramaswamy publicly released 20 years of his individual income tax returns and called upon his rivals in the primary to do the same.
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Vivek Ramaswamy's fortune had made up the vast majority of his campaign's fundraising.
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Vivek Ramaswamy's fundraising lagged far behind Donald Trump's and Ron DeSantis's, but exceeded most of the other Republican primary candidates'.
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In campaign stops and interviews, Vivek Ramaswamy had criticized secularism, saying that the US was founded on Christian values or Judeo-Christian values; that he shares those values; and that he believes in one God.
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In May 2023, Vivek 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.
48.
Vivek Ramaswamy's campaign denied attempting to "scrub" his Wikipedia page and argued the edits were revisions of "factual distortions".
49.
However, Vivek Ramaswamy never worked with the DOGE team during the Trump administration, as on Inauguration Day, he dropped out of DOGE to focus on a potential 2026 Ohio gubernatorial campaign.
50.
On February 15,2025, Vivek Ramaswamy filed to enter the 2026 Ohio gubernatorial election.
51.
Vivek Ramaswamy sees the United States in the middle of a national identity crisis precipitated by what he calls "new secular religions like COVID-ism, climate-ism, and gender ideology".
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Vivek Ramaswamy promised to pardon Julian Assange, Ross Ulbricht, and Edward Snowden.
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Vivek Ramaswamy suggested that he considered Robert F Kennedy Jr.
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Vivek Ramaswamy has opposed affirmative action, and vowed to rescind Executive Order 11246.
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Vivek Ramaswamy argued that American-style capitalism provides an antidote to India's caste system.
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Vivek Ramaswamy has opposed critical race theory, and asserts that it violates the Civil rights legislations and is being used to indoctrinate students in public schools.
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Vivek Ramaswamy has generally opposed abortion and called for abortion to be left to states while being against a national ban.
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Vivek Ramaswamy said through a spokesman that he believes same-sex marriage is "settled precedent" but supported broad restrictions on the rights of transgender Americans, and used anti-trans rhetoric.
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Vivek Ramaswamy pledged, if elected, to rule by executive fiat to a degree unprecedented among modern US presidents.
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Vivek Ramaswamy called the Food and Drug Administration "corrupt" and vowed to "expose and ultimately gut" the FDA.
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Vivek Ramaswamy 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.
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Vivek Ramaswamy 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.
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Vivek Ramaswamy proposed to repeal the federal law that requires presidents to spend all the money Congress appropriates.
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Vivek Ramaswamy favored raising the standard voting age from 18 to 25, which would require repealing the 26th Amendment to the Constitution.
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Vivek Ramaswamy said he would have liked to end birthright citizenship.
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Vivek Ramaswamy said he would have allowed 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.
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Vivek Ramaswamy pledged to "use our military to annihilate the Mexican drug cartels".
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Vivek Ramaswamy took no public position on the 2017 Trump tax cuts.
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In Republican primary debates and campaign appearances, Vivek Ramaswamy often repeated and promoted an array of right-wing conspiracy theories and falsehoods.
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Vivek Ramaswamy supports reforming the H-1B visa, citing problems with the lottery-based system and suggesting it should instead be based on merit.
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Vivek Ramaswamy said he would not have used US military force against Iran.
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Vivek Ramaswamy said he favored "some major concessions to Russia, including freezing those current lines of control in a Korean-war style armistice agreement" to end the Russo-Ukrainian War.
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Vivek Ramaswamy favored ending US military aid to Ukraine, excluding Ukraine from NATO, and allowing Russia to remain in occupied regions of Ukraine in exchange for an agreement that Russia end its alliance with China.
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Vivek Ramaswamy 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 US should not militarily defend Taiwan from Chinese attack after the US has achieved "semiconductor independence", which he pledged to achieve by 2028.
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Vivek Ramaswamy is pro-Israel and calls Israel "a Divine nation, charged with a Divine purpose".
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Vivek Ramaswamy has said Israel should feel free to oppose the two-state solution.
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Vivek Ramaswamy's critics said that when he cited the upsides of climate change and fossil fuels, such as reduced cold-related deaths, cheap energy, and faster plant growth, he ignored larger downsides, such as increases in other weather-related disasters, deaths, and plant damage, and ignored that there are now less-polluting sources of cheap energy.
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Vivek Ramaswamy's wife, Apoorva Tewari Vivek Ramaswamy, is a laryngologist and surgeon; they met at Yale, when he was studying law and she was studying medicine.