Vivek Ramaswamy facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Vivek Ramaswamy
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Ramaswamy in 2023
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| Born |
Vivek Ganapathy Ramaswamy
August 9, 1985 Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.
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| Education | Harvard University (BA) Yale University (JD) |
| Occupation |
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| Title | Co-founder of Strive Asset Management |
| Political party | Republican |
| Spouse(s) |
Apoorva Tewari
(m. 2015) |
| Children | 2 |
Vivek Ganapathy Ramaswamy ( vih-VAYK-_-RAH-mə-SWAH-mee; born August 9, 1985) is an American entrepreneur and politician. 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. He suspended his campaign in January 2024, following his fourth place performance in Iowa.
Early life
Vivek Ganapathy Ramaswamy was born on August 9, 1985, in Cincinnati, Ohio, to Indian Hindu immigrant parents. His parents 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
Ramaswamy worked as an investment partner at a hedge fund before founding Roivant Sciences in 2014. He also co-founded an investment firm, Strive Asset Management.
Political positions
Ramaswamy pledged, if elected president, to rule by executive fiat to a degree unprecedented among modern U.S. presidents. He 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 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 proposed to repeal the federal law that requires presidents to spend all the money Congress appropriates.
Ramaswamy favored raising the standard voting age to 25, which would require repealing the 26th Amendment to the Constitution.
Ramaswamy also said he would have liked to end birthright citizenship.
He said he would have 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 supported making Election Day a federal holiday, while eliminating Juneteenth (which he called "useless" and "redundant") as a federal holiday.
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He expressed support for an inheritance tax, and called for ending the Federal Reserve's dual mandate.
Climate and energy
Although Ramaswamy said he was not a climate denier, he said in a Republican primary debate that "the climate change agenda is a hoax". He criticized 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".
Ramaswamy opposed subsidies for electric vehicles.
Personal life
Ramaswamy's wife, Apoorva Tewari Ramaswamy, is a laryngologist and surgeon; they met at Yale, when he was studying law and 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 and wrote in 2020, "I believe it is wrong to kill sentient animals for culinary pleasure".
See also
In Spanish: Vivek Ramaswamy para niños
