What Is Vivek Ramaswamy's Net Worth?
Vivek Ramaswamy is an American businessman, entrepreneur and author who has a net worth of $1.1 billion. 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.
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.
Prior to becoming famous as a conservative Presidential candidate, Vivek was probably best known for founding a pharmaceutical company called Roivant Sciences. Roivant Sciences buys forgotten and abandoned drugs to develop them and, hopefully, then achieve FDA approval. For example, in 2015, a Roivant subsidiary company called Axovant paid $5 million to acquire an abandoned Alzheimer's drug from GlaxoSmith Kline. Two years later, Axovant raised over $360 million in what was then the largest biotech IPO ever. The company soon achieved a peak market cap of $2.5 billion. Unfortunately, Axovant's primary asset soon proved ineffective at treating Alzheimer's, and the company's market cap plummeted to $20 million before being shuttered. Vivek stepped down as CEO of Roivant in 2021 and soon co-founded Strive Asset Management.
Ramaswamy has published the books "Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America's Social Justice Scam" (2021) and "Nation of Victims: Identity Politics, the Death of Merit, and the Path Back to Excellence" (2022), and "Politico" described him as "one of the intellectual godfathers of the anti-woke movement." In 2016, Vivek ranked Vivek #24 on a list of "America's Richest Entrepreneurs Under 40" with a net worth of $600 million.
In February 2023, Ramaswamy announced that he was running for the Republican nomination in the 2024 presidential election, stating, "I am launching not only a political campaign but a cultural movement to create a new American Dream—one that is not only about money but about the unapologetic pursuit of excellence." In August 2023, Vivek qualified to participate in the first Republican debate of the 2024 campaign. Vivek was ultimately seen as the winner of the debate, however he did make some extremely controversial statements. For example, he openly referred to climate change as a "hoax."
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Early Life
Vivek Ganapathy Ramaswamy was born on August 9, 1985, in Cincinnati, Ohio. His mother, geriatric psychiatrist Geeta Ramaswamy, and his father, General Electric engineer Vivek Ganapathy, immigrated to the U.S. from Vadakkencherry, Palakkad, Kerala, India.
Ramaswamy attended the Jesuit school St. Xavier High School, where he graduated first in his class and excelled at tennis, becoming nationally ranked. He graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in biology in 2007, and as a college student, he joined the Phi Beta Kappa fraternity. Vivek won the Bowdoin Prize for Natural Sciences for his thesis, which was about "the ethical questions raised by creating human-animal chimeras," and it was published in "The Boston Globe" and "The New York Times."
In 2011, The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans awarded Ramaswamy a fellowship to help him work towards a Juris Doctor degree in law at Yale University. He graduated from Yale Law School in 2013.
Early Career
In 2007, Vivek co-founded the technology company Campus Venture Network with Travis May. The Campus Venture Network provided networking resources and software to college entrepreneurs, and its website was StudentBusinesses.com. Ramaswamy and May sold the company to the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation in 2009.
Vivek worked at QVT Financial from 2007 to 2014, and in addition to being a partner there, he co-managed the company's biotech portfolio. During those seven years, Vivek earned $7 million in total compensation.
Roivant Sciences
In 2014, Vivek founded Roivant Sciences, a pharmaceutical company dedicated to "developing and delivering medicines to patients faster and more efficiently." Roivant typically buys pharmaceutical drugs that have stalled in development for any number of reasons. Roivant acquires the drug for pennies on the dollar and then invests additional funds to help finish development with the hope of getting FDA approval.
In 2017 Roivant raised $1.1 billion in an investment round that was led by SoftBank.
In 2020, Roivant sold five of its drugs to Japanese pharmaceutical company Sumitomo Dainippon for $3 billion. Sumitomo also acquired a 5% stake in Roivant at the same time. This deal led to Vivek earning $176 million in 2020.
Ramaswamy stepped down as CEO of Roivant in January 2021. A few months later Roivant agreed to a SPAC merger in a deal that ultimately valued the company at $7.3 billion. At that point, Vivek's 7% stake in Roivant was worth $511 million.
Axovant Sciences
In 2015 a Roivant subsidiary company called Axovant Sciences raised $362 million in what was the largest biotech IPO ever up to that point. Axovant's main asset was an Alzheimer's drug called Intepirdine that it acquired from GlaxoSmith Kline for $5 million. The Alzheimer's drug ended up failing to improve patient outcomes. The day before the news of the drug's failure was made public, Axovant's market cap was at an all-time high of $2.5 billion. The day the news was made public in August 2017, Axovant's stock dropped 70%. Within days, the company's market cap was $500 million. Between December 2017 and April 2022, Axovant's market cap dropped from $500 million to $20 million. Axovant is being wound down.
Other Ventures
Ramaswamy co-founded the Medicare navigation platform Chapter Medicare in 2020, and the following year, he became the co-founder and executive chairman of the Ohio-based firm Strive Asset Management, which was financially backed by investors like J. D. Vance and Peter Thiel and institutions like BlackRock.
In November 2022, Strive Asset Management's assets surpassed $500 million. In mid-2023, Strive was valued at $300 million. Vivek owns 1/3 of Strive, which means his stake is worth $100 million.
Vivek is opposed to the environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) movement. Strive's "mission is to restore the voices of everyday citizens in the American economy by guiding companies to focus on excellence over politics."
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Presidential Race
Ramaswamy announced that he was running for president during a February 2023 appearance on "Tucker Carlson Tonight." According to "Politico," Vivek wants to "enter the race with an entrepreneurial spirit, unorthodox ideas, and few expectations, and end up developing a major following that will carry him to the presidency."
Books and Appearances
Ramaswamy's 2021 book "Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America's Social Justice Scam" reached #2 on "The New York Times" Best Sellers list in the Hardcover Nonfiction section and led to numerous talk show appearances. Ramaswamy has appeared on television shows such as "Wake Up America," "Spicer & Co.," "Fox and Friends First," "Fox Report with Jon Scott," "Fox Files," "Free Speech Nation," "Real Time with Bill Maher," "Fox Business Tonight," "The Record with Greta Van Susteren," "Gutfeld!," and "America Reports."
Personal Life
Vivek met his wife, Apoorva, when they were both attending Yale University. Apoorva is a surgeon and assistant professor at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. The couple has welcomed two sons together. In a 2020 essay titled "The Pluralism Within," Ramaswamy wrote:
"I am not just a man — I am a proud father, a loyal husband, and a grateful son. I am not just a person of color — I am a Hindu, a child of immigrants, an American citizen, and a native of Ohio. I am a CEO, but I am also a scientist and an entrepreneur."
He also wrote that Apoorva, an airway specialist, felt that it was her duty to treat COVID-19 patients not long after their eldest son was born, so Vivek became the principal caretaker during that time. Ramaswamy added:
"She went on to become infected in the line of duty and was separated from our family for longer than we had planned."
Vivek has partial stakes in three private jets.
Ohio Mansion
In May 2021, Vivek and Apoorva paid $2 million for an 11,300-square-foot home in Columbus, Ohio. The sprawling mansion, which sits on 1.6 acres of perfectly manicured lawns, is a 20-minute drive from Ohio State's Wexner Medical Center, where Apoorva works as a surgeon and assistant professor. Vivek and Apoorva bought the mansion from Wesley C. Bates, the son of John Bates, the founder of Stanley Steamer. They still own their first Ohio home, which is worth around $500,000.
