Vivek Ramaswamy

Vivek Ramaswamy was born on August 9, 1985, in Cincinnati, Ohio, and was raised there. He is Hindu.⁠[1][2]

His campaign website says that a sixth-grade teacher at a Greater Cincinnati public school challenged him to aim higher. As a youth he studied piano and was a nationally ranked tennis player, and he graduated as valedictorian of a Jesuit high school; he graduated from St. Xavier High School in 2003.⁠[3][1][4]

He attended Harvard College and graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in biology in 2007.⁠[1][4]

From 2007 to 2009 he co-founded and ran Campus Venture Network, and from 2007 to 2014 he worked at the hedge fund QVT Financial, where he became a partner.⁠[1]

While working at the hedge fund, he earned a J.D. from Yale Law School in 2013.⁠[5]

In 2014 Ramaswamy founded the biopharmaceutical company Roivant Sciences. The company operated as a holding company, developing drugs through a series of subsidiaries whose names end in “-vant,” in areas including women’s health, dermatology and rare diseases.⁠[6][7][8]

In December 2014 Roivant’s subsidiary Axovant Sciences bought the Alzheimer’s drug candidate intepirdine from GlaxoSmithKline for $5 million. GlaxoSmithKline’s four earlier Phase 2 trials had produced mixed results, looking promising only when the drug was combined with donepezil.⁠[9]

From March 2015 Ramaswamy served as Axovant’s principal executive officer. In June 2015 Axovant went public, selling 24.15 million shares at $15 each and raising $362.2 million.⁠[9]

In 2015 interviews he called intepirdine “a great drug candidate”; PolitiFact found that he did not make clear that the best results had come from combination therapy. According to a 2017 proxy statement, Roivant owned 69.8% of Axovant, while Ramaswamy personally owned less than 1%.⁠[9]

Axovant announced that intepirdine had failed to meet its main goals of improving memory and physical function in a large trial of more than 1,300 patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease; the company’s shares lost about 70% of their value in early trading that day.⁠[8]

After intepirdine also failed the Phase 2b HEADWAY trial in dementia with Lewy bodies, Axovant’s then chief executive David Hung said there was no evidence to support further development, and the company discontinued the drug. Axovant was later renamed Axovant Gene Therapies in 2019 and Sio Gene Therapies in 2020, and was dissolved in 2023.⁠[10][9]

In December 2019 Roivant and Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma completed a series of transactions in which Sumitomo indirectly acquired Roivant’s controlling equity interests in five affiliates and its equity interests in six other privately held affiliates, paying Roivant $3.0 billion in cash up front.⁠[11][7]

In January 2021 Ramaswamy left his day-to-day role as Roivant’s chief executive to become executive chairman of its board, and chief financial officer Matt Gline became CEO.⁠[6][7]

That year he published “Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam,” a critique of corporate ESG goals that raised his national profile.⁠[1][12]

On September 30, 2021, Roivant completed its merger with the special purpose acquisition company Montes Archimedes Acquisition Corp, with a consolidated cash position of about $2.5 billion at closing; its shares began trading on Nasdaq under the ticker “ROIV” on October 1.⁠[13]

In early 2022 Ramaswamy and his high school friend Anson Frericks co-founded the asset manager Strive Asset Management, with Ramaswamy as executive chairman, raising about $20 million from outside investors including Peter ThielPeter ThielPeter Thiel is an American entrepreneur and investor, a co-founder of PayPal and Palantir Technologies, and the first outside investor in Facebook. He is a partner at the venture capital firm Founders Fund and founded the Thiel Fellowship, which funds young people to leave college and build new things; his public skepticism of higher education, his support for Trump in 2016, and his funding of litigation against Gawker Media have drawn controversy.Open the full entry, J.D. Vance and Bill AckmanBill AckmanBill Ackman is an investment manager and the founder and CEO of Pershing Square; he is also executive chairman of Howard Hughes Holdings and a co-trustee of the Pershing Square Foundation. His career spans Gotham Partners, shareholder activism at public companies, closed-end funds and permanent capital vehicles, and philanthropic funding in education, health care, and scientific research.Open the full entry. Its first fund, the Strive U.S. Energy ETF (DRLL), launched on August 9, 2022, and the firm raised more than $650 million from investors in less than six months.⁠[14][12][1]

In September 2022 he published his second book, “Nation of Victims,” which urges Americans to reject “victimhood culture.”⁠[1]

On February 21, 2023, Ramaswamy announced on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” that he would seek the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, campaigning on an “America First 2.0” agenda. He stepped down as Strive’s executive chairman for the bid, and left Roivant’s board after serving as its chairman until February 20.⁠[5][12][6]

In March he launched his first TV ad, “Identity Crisis,” in New Hampshire and Iowa; his third book, “Capitalist Punishment,” was published in 2023.⁠[5][1]

After finishing fourth in the Iowa Republican caucuses with just under 8% of the vote, he suspended his campaign on January 15, 2024, saying Donald Trump would have his “full endorsement for the presidency.”⁠[1][15]

In November 2024 President-elect Trump named Ramaswamy and Elon MuskElon MuskElon Musk is an entrepreneur who founded SpaceX and has long served as chief executive of Tesla; he also took part in creating PayPal, OpenAI, Neuralink, The Boring Company, and xAI. He acquired Twitter in 2022, and his businesses span spaceflight, electric vehicles, energy, artificial intelligence, and social media.Open the full entry to co-lead the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), set up to help reduce federal spending.⁠[16][17]

On January 20, 2025, the day of Trump’s inauguration, Ramaswamy left DOGE, leaving Musk to run it alone. DOGE spokesperson Anna Kelly said he had played “a critical role” in creating DOGE but intended to run for elected office, which required him to remain outside DOGE under the structure announced that day. Earlier, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine had met with him about the U.S. Senate seat vacated by J.D. Vance before appointing Lieutenant Governor Jon Husted.⁠[16][17]

On February 24, 2025, Ramaswamy launched his campaign for Ohio governor in 2026 at an aerospace manufacturer in West Chester, north of Cincinnati, followed by a second event in New Albany, outside Columbus. “We don’t have to be a state in decline,” he said.⁠[18]

That night Trump gave him his “COMPLETE AND TOTAL ENDORSEMENT” on Truth Social. State Treasurer Robert Sprague, Secretary of State Frank LaRose and U.S. Senators Rick Scott and Marsha Blackburn were among those backing him. Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost had announced his own candidacy the previous month.⁠[2][18]

At the outset he proposed eliminating the state income tax and property taxes and cutting business regulations, and on education he called for more study of American history, classroom cellphone bans and physical education.⁠[18]

The Ohio Republican Party endorsed him in May 2025, and Trump endorsed him again on November 7. His campaign reported raising nearly $20 million in 2025, not counting his personal wealth.⁠[19][20]

On January 6, 2026, Ramaswamy’s team announced that Ohio Senate President Rob McColley, an attorney from Napoleon, would be his running mate for lieutenant governor, and he formally introduced McColley at an event in Cleveland the next day. Describing himself as “an entrepreneur, not a politician,” Ramaswamy said he had chosen McColley as a governing partner.⁠[21][20]

On January 7, 2026, term-limited Governor Mike DeWine issued a statement endorsing the Ramaswamy–McColley ticket.⁠[22][23]

Ramaswamy said the income tax should eventually be brought “down to zero”; he backed away from fully eliminating property taxes, promising instead “the biggest property tax rollback in the history of our state.” As of February 2026 he had not said how this would be paid for, and his spokesperson said more formal policy announcements would come later in the campaign.⁠[24]

His platform calls for immediate property-tax cuts, phasing out the state income tax starting with capital gains taxes, expanding natural gas to lower electric bills, raising standards for third-grade literacy and eighth-grade numeracy, paying top teachers more, and stricter bail and sentencing for repeat violent offenders. He has also proposed consolidating or closing some public universities, an idea that has raised concerns.⁠[25][26]

In April 2026 Ramaswamy gave his campaign a $25 million personal check, while an allied super PAC had amassed another $23 million.⁠[27]

In the May 5, 2026, Republican primary for governor, Ramaswamy defeated car designer Casey Putsch by a wide margin; the Associated Press called the race about 20 minutes after polls closed, when he had about 85% of the vote, and he received 673,902 votes. Votes for a third candidate, Heather Hill, were not counted after the secretary of state ruled her ineligible when her running mate withdrew on April 18. Putsch had criticized Ramaswamy’s South Asian background during the race.⁠[27][28][19][26]

On September 21, 2026, an ad by his Democratic opponent Amy ActonAmy ActonAmy Acton is an American physician and Democratic politician who headed the Ohio Department of Health and led the state’s early COVID-19 response, and is the Democratic nominee in the 2026 Ohio governor’s election.Open the full entry said Ramaswamy “pushed an Alzheimer’s drug that he knew didn’t work” and “made hundreds of millions of dollars scamming people.” On October 12 PolitiFact rated the claim Mostly False, finding that public records do not show how much he made from intepirdine and that he has not been charged with a crime, and quoting former SEC chief investigator David P. Weber: “A failed bet is not fraud.” Ramaswamy’s campaign did not respond to PolitiFact’s request for comment.⁠[9]

In October 2026 a one-minute video spread online in which Acton’s birth mother called Acton “a liar,” said she had “lied her entire life” and lied about her past, and urged Ohioans not to vote for her. It first appeared in a post by an Ohio political blogger and lacked the “paid for” tag legally required for television ads.⁠[29][30]

On October 20 Ramaswamy acknowledged, “It is an ad from our campaign,” and his team said it would spend $4 million promoting it on television and online, adding that the woman in the ad was not paid. Spokesperson Connie Luck said Acton “has some serious problems with the truth,” and campaign manager Jonathan Ewing called it “a campaign-ending moment for Amy Acton.” Ramaswamy also said he would like the race to be about “the substantive issues that impact Ohioans,” adding, “She won’t debate me.”⁠[31][29][30][32]

Acton condemned the ad, calling Ramaswamy’s personal attacks “a lifelong pattern”; her campaign spokesperson said Ramaswamy “is totally unfit to lead Ohio.” Donald Trump Jr. and others shared the video online, while Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Sherrod Brown called it “disgusting.”⁠[29][31]

The election for Ohio governor and lieutenant governor is scheduled for November 3, 2026, with three tickets on the ballot: Democrats Amy Acton and David Pepper, Republicans Ramaswamy and Robert A. McColley, and Libertarians Don Kissick and James Mills. By October 20 more than 676,000 Ohioans had already voted.⁠[33][29]

Personal website: Public link: https://vivekforohio.com/ (opens in a new window)⁠[34]

X: Public account: https://x.com/VivekGRamaswamy (opens in a new window)⁠[34]

YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is Google’s video-sharing and creator platform, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and acquired by Google in 2006. Built around video uploading, viewing, and creator earnings, the platform has developed Shorts, YouTube Music, Premium, YouTube TV, and products for children, and is headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.Open the full entry: Public channel: https://www.youtube.com/@VivekGRamaswamy (opens in a new window)⁠[34]