Vivek Ramaswamy, the anti-woke businessman and possible Trump vice president

Recently, former President Donald Trump named former GOP primary candidate and conservative businessman Vivek Ramaswamy as his possible choice for vice president should he be the winner in the November presidential election.

In mid-January, Ramaswamy withdrew his candidacy in the Republican presidential race after losing the Republican caucus in Iowa. He immediately expressed his support for the former president who made a clean sweep at the event. The young businessman maintained that the results were overwhelming and pointed out that it is necessary to have a patriotic president in the White House:

At the same time, the former president praised Ramaswamy and highlighted his work during the presidential campaign. He congratulated him for achieving fourth position in the race.

Presidential Candidacy

Almost a year ago (February 22, 2023), Ramaswamy announced his candidacy for the Republican Party primaries with a view to being chosen to run for president in 2024. The billionaire became the third high-profile challenger to run in this year's election, entering the GOP race against former President Donald Trump and former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley.

During an interview on the Fox program Tucker Carlson Tonight, he defended his idea that "the strength of the United States is not our diversity, but the ideals that unite us above our differences." And he named merit, freedom of expression, truth, responsibility as his main ideals:

Subsequently, he stated which would be the main measures he would implement in the event of becoming president. Some of them: ending affirmative action (positive discrimination); abandoning the climate religion; completely decoupling from China; or limiting the terms of office of federal bureaucrats to eight years.

GOP primary campaign and sudden withdrawal

Ramaswamy was one of the great protagonists in the first GOP debates. The billionaire of Indian origin captured the attention of viewers during his interventions at the events. So much so that according to Google Trends, his name was the most searched on the famous platform for a few days due to the interest it generated among the American public.

Throughout his campaign he defended his proposals that reaffirmed his conservative ideology by criticizing the LGBT lobby, Biden's immigration policies and reverse racism. He also defended traditional American values of family, capitalism and, most importantly, the Constitution of the United States, which he said is "the greatest guarantee of freedoms that has been given in history."

At 38 years old, he was the youngest candidate in the process. He had a great boost on social networks and his jovial way of campaigning allowed him to advance in the Republican primaries in an unexpected way until he finished in fourth place and decided to retire.

Early years and education

The biotech entrepreneur was born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio. His parents are originally from the state of Kerala, India . He is a graduate of St. He was valedictorian of his class at St. Xavier High School in 2003. He was a nationally ranked junior tennis player and "an accomplished pianist."

In 2007, he graduated from Harvard with summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa awards for a bachelor's degree in biology. His graduate thesis - on ethical issues raised by creating human/animal chimeras - was awarded the Bowdoin Prize in Natural Sciences, and was reviewed in The New York Times and The Boston Globe. In 2013, he completed a J.D. at Yale Law School.

Businesses, non-profit work and awards

In 2007, Ramaswamy co-founded Campus Venture Network, a technology company that provided software and networking resources to university entrepreneurs. Simultaneously, he worked at the investment management firm QVT Financial until 2014. There he was a partner and co-director of the Biotechnology Department.

In 2014, he founded Roivant Sciences, a pharmaceutical company that uses the application of technology in drug development, there he was CEO until 2021. In 2020, he co-founded Chapter Medicare, the only consumer-centric Medicare navigation platform. He is also the founder of Axovant Sciences, another clinical-stage pharmaceutical focused on dementia treatments. And biotech company Urovant, which focuses on treating urological disorders.

Ramaswamy is currently co-founder and executive chairman of Strive Asset Management, an Ohio-based asset management firm. The company was created as an alternative to the big asset managers (BlackRock, State Street and Vanguard) that Ramaswamy constantly criticizes for mixing business with politics and for engaging in environmental, social and governance activities (ESG criteria).

Ramaswamy served on the board of directors of The Philanthropy Roundtable and was a trustee of The Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity (FreOpp). He was also featured on the cover of Forbes magazine in 2015 for his work in drug development. The New Yorker magazine named him "CEO of Anti-Woke, Inc." in December 2022.

Books

In 2021, Ramaswamy resigned as CEO of Roivant Sciences in order to publish his first book Woke, Inc: Inside Corporate America's Social Justice Scam. The billionaire describes it as a critique of the "stakeholder capitalism", and argues that corporate efforts to promote social causes "rob us of our money, our voice and our identity." The writing debuted at #2 on The New York Times bestseller list.

In 2022 he published Nation of Victims, his second book. In this he noted that the disappearance of excellence and exceptionalism - central elements of American identity - left a deep moral and cultural void in the nation. And using historical examples, he considered that "the culture of victimhood" is to blame for the "decline of the United States."