Vivek Ganapathy Ramaswamy (/vɪˈveɪk rɑːməˈswɑːmiː/; vih-VAYK rah-mə-SWAH-mee; 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.
What Is Vivek Ramaswamy’s Net Worth?
Vivek Ramaswamy is an American businessman, entrepreneur and author who has a net worth of $800 million. As we detail throughout this article below, Vivek Ramaswamy earned his fortune through biotech and financial investments. He became widely-known on the national stage in August 2023 as a Republican candidate for US President. On August 23, 2023, Vivek was widely considered the winner of the first Republican debate.
The majority of Vivek’s net worth comes from his 7% stake in a company called Roivant Sciences (which we’ll describe in more detail in the next paragraph). Roivant sold five drugs and a 5% stake in itself to a Japanese pharmaceutical company in 2020 for $3 billion. As a result, Vivek earned $176 million in 2020. According to public disclosures, Vivek earned $260 million between 2014 and 2022 alone in the form of salary, bonuses and capital gains.
Roivant went public through a SPAC merger in early 2021. On the day the merger was finalized, Roivant’s market cap was $7.3 billion. Therefore Vivek’s 8% stake was worth around $511 million. By mid-August 2023 when he was on the Republican debate stage, Roivant’s market cap was $8.56 billion. Therefore Vivek’s 7% stake was worth around $600 million. Despite what you may have read on other sites, Vivek Ramaswamy’s net worth has never been high enough to make him a billionaire.
Vivek also owns 1/3 of index fund provider Strive Asset Management. Today Strive manages over $500 million in assets. In mid-2023, Strive was valued at $300 million, adding $100 million to Vivek’s fortune.
Net Worth: $800 Million
Date of Birth: Aug 9, 1985 (38 years old)
Place of Birth: Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.
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.