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VIVEK Ramaswamy is a former candidate for the 2024 Republican primaries.
But what is the politician’s background? Here’s what we know about his parents.
Who are Vivek Ramaswamy’s parents?
Vivek was born to Hindu Tamil immigrant parents.
His father, V. Ganapathy Ramaswamy, is a graduate of the National Institute of Technology Calicut and worked as an engineer and patent attorney for General Electric.
His mother, Geetha Ramaswamy, was a graduate of the Mysore Medical College & Research Institute and worked as a geriatric psychiatrist.
His parents immigrated from Palakkad district in Kerala, India.
Vivek’s family had an ancestral home in a traditional agraharam in the town of Vadakkencherry.
He spent many summer vacations traveling to India with his parents.
His father told News18 Malayalam, “Ours is a regular family. Vivek has been an ambitious boy since his childhood.”
“Both he and his younger brother have had an interest in Indian culture.”
Vivek said his father gave him good advice in life, telling him, “If you’re going to stand out, then you might as well be outstanding.”
Who is Vivek Ramaswamy?
Vivek Ramaswamy was born on August 9, 1985, in Cincinnati, Ohio.
He graduated from Harvard College in 2007 with a Bachelor of Arts, summa cum laude in biology, and earned a Juris Doctor from Yale in 2013.
He interned for the hedge fund Amaranth Advisors and investment bank Goldman Sachs.
In 2022, he founded Strive, an Ohio-based asset management firm.
In February 2023, he announced his intention to run for the US Presidency.
Ramaswamy is a Republican and donated $10.55 million to his own campaign.
He dropped out of the presidential race on January 15, 2024, after coming in fourth in the Iowa caucus.
He is also an author, having written Woke, Inc. and Nation Of Victims.
Ramaswamy is married to Apoorva Tewari and they have two children.
How did Vivek Ramaswamy become a billionaire?
During this time, Vivek was already wealthy due to his involvement in the finance, pharmaceutical, and biotech industries.
Vivek stated in 2013 that he had a net worth of around $15 million before graduating from law school.
Vivek co-founded StudentBusinesses.com when he was studying at Harvard.
The website was for student founders to pitch professional investors.
It was acquired by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation in 2009 for an undisclosed sum.
After graduating, Vivek joined the hedge fund QVT, where he specialized in pharmaceutical investments.
During the first seven years of his career, he earned $7 million and made partner by 28.
Vivek left QVT when he was 29 and started up the biotechnology company Roivant Sciences in 2014.
Roivant’s mission was to develop drugs that other pharmaceutical companies had abandoned.
In 2015, he founded Roivant subsidiary Axovant.
Its prized asset was an Alzheimer’s drug, Intepirdine, which Vivek purchased for $5 million.
However, it turned out to be disappointing when it failed a clinical trial two years later.
When Axovant joined the New York Stock Exchange, Vivek reported more than $38 million, most of which was from capital gains, on his tax return.
In 2020, the company was rebranded as Sio Gene Therapies and is now worth $30 million.
Vivek had other drugs and in 2020, Japanese pharma giant Sumitomo Dinippon paid $3 billion to acquire five of them and a 10 percent stake in Roivant.
That year, Vivek reported $176 million in income on his tax return which included $174.5 million in capital gains.
Vivek stepped down from his company in January 2021, citing “increasing public engagement” with his shareholders.
In 2021, Vivek stepped down as CEO of Roivant and turned to politics.
He wrote a book called Woke, Inc., which criticized corporate America’s growing focus on social justice issues and the ESG (environmental, social, and government) movement taking over Wall Street.
A year later, Vivek founded an “anti-woke” index fund provider named Strive.
Strive was valued at a hefty $300 million and Vivek’s stake is worth around $100 million.
