How Vivek Ramaswamy Got Richer While Pumping Millions Into ...
Long shot presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy dropped out of the race on Monday, but with it came a silver lining. While he was campaigning for the Republican nomination in Iowa –where he came in a distant fourth—and across the country this past year, his fortune ticked up by over a $100 million.
Ramaswamy emerges from his campaign worth an estimated $960 million, up from around $840 million last February, when he announced he was running for office. That $120 million gain more than makes up for the $17 million he put into his campaign in the first nine months of 2023: $1.8 million in cash, and $15.25 million booked as loans, according to his filings with the Federal Election Commission. Ramaswamy’s camp says he’s even richer, worth at least $1 billion.
How much Ramaswamy spent on the race in the last quarter and in early 2024 has not yet been published, though two weeks ago, he sold $33 million of shares in Roivant Sciences, his largest asset, and told news site Axios that he planned to use some of the proceeds to make a "significant investment" in his campaign. Even if he spent it all, he’d still be ahead. The publicly traded drug development firm that Ramaswamy founded in 2014 and led as CEO until 2021 closed trading at $10.86 per share on Tuesday, up 25% from its price on February 21 2023, the day Ramaswamy declared his presidential candidacy. Ramaswamy holds a 6.4% stake in the company that is worth $565 million.
Sentiment around Roivant’s prospects appears to be positive. The stock hit an all-time high of $13.19 on September 27, and closed the year up 42%. Eleven of Roivant’s 12 stock analysts maintain a buy rating on the stock, per CNN, with a median forecast price of $15.50. Roivant sold one of its subsidiaries, an inflammatory bowel drug called Televant, for $7.1 billion in December to pharma giant Roche.
Then there is Strive Asset Management, the “anti-woke” investment company that sells exchange traded funds to retail and institutional investors. Ramaswamy created Strive in 2022, after stepping down as Roivant CEO and publishing his best-seller Woke, Inc.. He resigned as Strive’s executive chairman after launching his campaign, though remains its controlling shareholder.
Ramaswamy’s majority stake in Strive is worth an estimated $150 million, based on the company’s last financing round in November 2022, when investors like Bill Ackman (who is now backing Democratic Congressman Dean Phillips) and Peter Thiel valued Strive at around $300 million, according to Anson Frericks, Strive’s cofounder (and Ramaswamy’s high school friend). Strive will “probably be raising another round at some point,” Frericks told Forbes in August. “It all just depends on how the business continues to grow.” Strive did not respond to a question Tuesday about its financing plans.
During Ramaswamy’s campaign, Strive more than doubled its assets under management, from around $500 million in early 2023 to over $1.1 billion as of this week. Most of that jump came when Ramaswamy’s popularity and name recognition were on the rise last spring and summer. Strive hit $1 billion of investor assets in September, just two weeks after the first Republican debate. Ramswamy’s peak in national polls was at 11.6% on August 23, according to 538’s poll tracker.
Ramaswamy also has an estimated $240 million in cash and personal assets, as he disclosed in public tax filings (and accounting for aggregate market returns). He made $39 million (pre-tax) in 2015 when he sold some of his Roivant stake in a private market transaction, and $176 million in 2020 after Japanese conglomerate Sumitomo Dainippon paid $3 billion to acquire five of Roivant’s drugs and a 10% stake in Roivant.
What will Ramaswamy do next? “TBD, but if you know Vivek, you know it’s going to be big,” his communications aide Tricia McLaughlin said in a text message.
In August, the candidate refused to rule out the possibility of returning to Strive or the private sector when asked about it by Forbes. “There are no changes to announce at this time,” said a Strive spokesperson over email.
A return to Roivant appears out of the question. Roivant CEO Matt Gline publicly distanced himself and the company from Ramaswamy’s views. The candidate repeatedly called the U.S Food and Drug Administration “corrupt” on the campaign trail, making any future executive role in biotech for him unlikely.
There has been speculation about Ramaswamy landing a job in a second Trump administration, although those prospects may have taken a hit: Trump accused Ramaswamy on Saturday of “deceitful campaign tricks” in a Truth Social post; then Trump aide Jason Miller dismissed Ramaswamy’s chances of attaining the Vice Presidential slot – a prospect Trump fleetingly entertained in August, back when Ramaswamy was popular.
But Ramaswamy has money, which Trump likes, and he’s already winning back the former POTUS by demonstrating his willingness to serve as a loyal MAGA attack dog on the campaign trail.
“We need a commander in chief who will lead us to victory in this war,” Ramaswamy said at a Trump rally in New Hampshire last night. “He’s a fantastic guy,” Trump said afterward. “He’s going to be working with us — he’ll be working with us for a long time.”
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