Vivek Ramaswamy during the second debate of the Republican candidates for the 2024 US presidential campaign (Reuters)

Vivek Ramaswamy is an American businessman of Indian descent. He entered the world of politics and attracted attention, as some polls considered him the second most popular Republican candidate, after former President Donald Trump. Despite his Hindu religion, he supports "Christian values", attacks secularism, and adopts anti-gay rhetoric and is against abortion and climate change policies.

Birth and upbringing

Ramaswamy was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1985 to Indian Hindu immigrant parents. He grew up in a family with a high educational level, as his father was an engineer who graduated from the National Institute of Technology, while his mother was a psychiatrist who graduated from the University of Missouri.

The Ramaswamy family's origins go back to the Indian state of Kerala, and they belong to the Brahmins who speak the Tamil language. The family was keen to practice their religious rituals in Ohio, so they would accompany their son to the local Hindu temple in Dayton, and Ramaswamy would also spend summer vacations in India with his parents.

Playing the piano was one of Ramaswamy's hobbies in elementary school, but his star shone even more when he played tennis in high school, as he was a nationally ranked player at the time.

Ramasomayi with his son Karthik on September 27, 2023 (Reuters)

Study and scientific training

It is noteworthy that Ramaswamy had attended St.

He studied biology at Harvard University and graduated summa cum laude in 2007. He was known among his peers during the undergraduate stage as having a “liberal and bold personality.”

He was a member of the Harvard Political Union, later becoming its president, and received the prestigious Bowdoin Student Prize. During his university career, he belonged to the American Libertarian Party, which is devoted to the principles of free economics and non-government interference, and the third American political party after the Republican and Democratic parties.

In 2011, Ramaswamy obtained a graduate fellowship to study law at Yale University. It is noteworthy that at that early time in his life he had achieved a fortune from his activities in the fields of pharmaceuticals and biotechnology, and by 2023 his net worth had reached about $15 million.

an idea

Ramaswamy later joined the Republicans and had a good reputation among them, especially after he published a book in 2021 in which he criticized companies that center their strategies around “issues of social justice and climate change,” in addition to seeking to thwart the values ​​of “capitalism, struggle, belief, and patriotism.”

Many consider him a miniature version of Trump, as he believes that America is suffering from an “identity crisis,” a rhetoric that is similar to Trump’s slogan, “We are a nation in decline.”

The nature of his upbringing influenced his thinking, as he believes that the continuation of American leadership and the success of the individual depend primarily on a “stable family,” and in his opinion, the Democrats do not help achieve this.

Investment experience

Ramaswamy was involved in an early stage of his life in a number of business activities that helped him create a fortune estimated at millions of dollars, and the beginning was in 2007, when he co-founded the “Cambius Venture Network”, which designed a special social networking site for university students who aspire to launch a project. commercial.

Ramaswamy also worked at the hedge fund QVT between 2007 and 2014. He then founded the biotechnology company Roivant Sciences, which received nearly $100 million in seed capital from QVT and other investors.

The strategy of this company at that time was to buy patents from major companies for medicines that had not yet been successfully developed, and then prepare them for sale in the markets.

The company has established several subsidiaries, including Dermavant, which focuses on dermatology, Eurovant, which focuses on urology, and China-based Sinovant and Setovant, which focus on the Asian market.

In 2015, Ramaswamy appeared on the cover of the famous Forbes magazine and said that his company would “achieve the highest return on investment ever in the pharmaceutical industry.” Indeed, in record time, he was able to initially raise the company's market value to nearly $3 billion, even though at that time he only had 8 employees, including his brother and mother.

In early 2022, Ramaswamy co-founded the Asset Management Company, based in Columbus, Ohio, with one of his friends, with support from Republican financiers. The company was able to raise about $20 million from external investors. Ramaswamy was CEO before resigning in February 2023 to focus on his presidential campaign.

Florida Governor DeSantis with Ramaswamy at the conclusion of the second debate for the 2024 Republican presidential candidates (Reuters)

Campaign

Ramaswamy's political interests did not appear early on. He abstained from voting in the presidential elections of 2008, 2012, and 2016, describing himself as not being political during that period. However, in 2020, Ramaswamy supported Trump in the elections, and later described himself as a "Republican."

Although he had not previously held political office, he contributed to supporting both Democrats and Republicans. In 2016, he donated $2,700 to the campaign of Dina Grayson, a Democratic congresswoman from Florida. Between 2020 and 2023, he donated $30,000 to the Ohio Republican Party.

On February 21, 2023, Ramaswamy announced his candidacy for the Republican Party for President of the United States in 2024, and as a first step he released his 20-year individual income tax returns to public, and called on his competitors in the primaries to do the same.

But on January 15, 2024, Ramaswamy announced his withdrawal from the race to obtain the Republican Party nomination for the presidential elections, after he suffered defeat in the Republican Party primary elections in Iowa.

Ramaswamy announced his support for candidate Trump, who is competing with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and former US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley.

Ramaswamy's fortune made up the vast majority of the money raised for his campaign, which targeted right-wing Christian evangelical and Christian nationalist voters, an important part of the Republican base, especially since some of them are hesitant or unwilling to support a non-Christian presidential candidate like Ramaswamy.

During his election campaign, Ramaswamy criticized secularism, saying that the United States was founded on “Christian values” or “Judeo-Christian values,” and stressed that he shares those values ​​and believes in one God.

Ramaswamy also called himself a "courageous American nationalist" and frequently attacked his rival in the election, Republican DeSantis, but he avoided criticizing Trump directly.

“The brave American nationalist” was not the only title that Ramaswamy gave to himself. He also called himself “the scientist,” saying that he had contributed to the development of many medicines, but this led to many criticisms being directed at him. Although he studied biology, he is not a scientist. His role in the biotechnology industry was limited to being a financier and businessman.

Among the criticisms that also targeted Ramaswamy during his election campaign was that he paid money to an editor to change his biography on the open encyclopedia Wikipedia before announcing his candidacy, but Ramaswamy denied that this amendment was politically motivated and described it as merely a review to correct some facts.

Ramaswamy's political positions

Although Trump is considered a rival to Ramaswamy for the 2024 Republican Party nomination, he is considered one of the former president's most prominent supporters. Although he condemned the January 6, 2020 attack carried out by Trump supporters on the Capitol building to protest the results of the presidential elections, he also said that the social media ban on Trump violates the First Amendment to the Constitution. Ramaswamy was also an advocate for Trump after he was indicted on federal criminal charges in 2023.

Before withdrawing from the race, Ramaswamy promised to pardon Trump if he was elected president of the United States, and to pardon WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, Ross Ulbricht, who is accused of facilitating the sale of drugs over the Internet, and Edward Snowden, who leaked classified information from the National Security Agency.

Ramaswamy opposes abortion, calling it "murder" and supports state abortion bans, with exceptions for rape, incest and danger to a woman's life, but he opposes the federal ban. He said he would abolish birthright citizenship if he became president.

Ramaswamy also uses anti-trans rhetoric and supports broad restrictions on the rights of transgender Americans.

He pledged to fire 75% of federal employees and eliminate at least 5 federal agencies, including the Department of Education, the FBI, the ATF, the IRS, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the US Department of Agriculture's Food and Nutrition Service.

He also described the Food and Drug Administration as "corrupt" and vowed to "expose and destroy" it and described the anti-climate change agenda as a "hoax", saying that global climate change is not all bad, and that people should be proud of living a high-carbon lifestyle.

Ramaswamy has pledged to use the military to crack down on Mexican drug cartels, and has said he favors federal legalization of marijuana.

On the international level, Ramaswamy tends to make “major concessions to Russia” in the war with Ukraine. He prefers ending US military aid to Kiev, excluding it from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and allowing Russia to occupy regions in Ukraine in exchange for an agreement requiring Moscow to end its alliance with China.

He has expressed support for Taiwanese independence, and floated the idea of ​​"putting a gun in every Taiwanese home" to deter an invasion by China, but said the United States should not militarily defend Taiwan against any Chinese attack.

Source: American press