[19] His conservative Christian piano teacher, who gave him private lessons from elementary through high school, also influenced his social views.

[6][23] 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.

[26] While in college, he performed Eminem covers and libertarian-themed rap music under the stage name and alter ego "Da Vek",[6][27][28] and was an intern for the hedge fund Amaranth Advisors and investment bank Goldman Sachs.

[29][30] Ramaswamy later 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.

[35][36][34] QVT's biotech investments under Ramaswamy included stakes in Palatin Technologies,[34] Concert Pharmaceuticals,[34] Pharmasset,[38][39] and Martin Shkreli's Retrophin.

[40] In a 2023 speech and in his book Woke Inc., Ramaswamy called Shkreli, whose company had greatly increased the cost of a life-saving drug, both "brilliant" and a pathological liar.

[34] Roivant's strategy was to purchase patents from larger pharmaceutical companies for drugs that had not yet been successfully developed, and then bring them to the market.

[38][42] In 2015, Ramaswamy raised $360 million for the Roivant subsidiary Axovant Sciences in an attempt to market intepirdine as a drug for Alzheimer's disease.

[36][43] In December 2014,[44] Axovant purchased the patent for intepirdine from GlaxoSmithKline (where the drug had failed four previous clinical trials) for $5 million, a small sum in the industry.

"[37][43] Before new clinical trials began, he engineered Axovant's initial public offering (IPO);[37] it became a "Wall Street darling" and raised $315 million.

[44] The company's market value initially soared to almost $3 billion, although at the time it only had eight employees, including Ramaswamy's brother and mother.

[37] Shareholders who lost money included various institutional investors, such as the California State Teachers' Retirement System pension fund.

[37] In 2019, Roivant sold its stake in five subsidiaries (or "vants"), including Enzyvant, to Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma;[37][50] Ramaswamy made $175 million in capital gains from the sale.

[54] Although Ramaswamy's presidential campaign centers on opposing corporate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) initiatives, RSV worked in support of pro-DEI and ESG initiatives, including promoting health equity and diversity within the biopharma and biotech industries.

[6] He published a second book, Nation of Victims: Identity Politics, the Death of Merit, and the Path Back to Excellence, in September 2022, a few months before announcing his presidential candidacy.

[63][64] Ramaswamy said that Strive would push energy companies to drill for more oil, frack for more natural gas, and "do whatever allows them to be most successful over the long run without regard to political, social, cultural or environmental agendas.

[66] In June 2023, after The Post and Courier reported on the meetings, the sessions were criticized as a form of unregistered lobbying; Ramaswamy's campaign manager denied any impropriety.

On February 21, 2023, Ramaswamy declared his candidacy for the Republican nomination for president of the United States in 2024 on Tucker Carlson Tonight.

[19] While campaigning, Ramaswamy called himself an "unapologetic American nationalist";[79] he often attacked DeSantis but avoided directly criticizing Trump.

[79][80] In May 2023, Ramaswamy's campaign admitted that he had paid an editor to alter his Wikipedia biography before announcing his candidacy, but denied that the payment for edits was politically motivated.

[83][81] Ramaswamy's campaign denied attempting to "scrub" his Wikipedia page and argued the edits were revisions of "factual distortions".

[87][88] Following his presidential campaign, on November 12, 2024, President-elect Donald Trump announced that Ramaswamy and businessman Elon Musk had been tasked to lead the newly-proposed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

[94] Ramaswamy sees the United States in the middle of a national identity crisis precipitated by what he calls "new secular religions like COVID-ism, climate-ism, and gender ideology".

[109] He said through a spokesman that he believes same-sex marriage is "settled precedent"[110] but supported broad restrictions on the rights of transgender Americans, and used anti-trans rhetoric.

[122] He said he would have allowed 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.

[127] In Republican primary debates and campaign appearances, Ramaswamy often repeated and promoted an array of right-wing conspiracy theories[128][129] and falsehoods.

[128][132] He also asserted that "big tech" stole the 2020 election and that the "Great Replacement" conspiracy theory was "the Democratic Party's platform".

[133][134][135] When asked about some of his past remarks, Ramaswamy frequently denied making the comments or claimed to have been misquoted, even when those denials were belied by recordings, transcripts, or extracts from his writing.

[140] Ramaswamy said he favored "some major concessions to Russia, including freezing those current lines of control in a Korean-war style armistice agreement" to end the Russo-Ukrainian War.

[25] 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".