Billionaire Ramaswamy's wealth has surged as he runs for Ohio governor

Having clinched the Republican nomination in May, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy is poised to become Ohio’s first billionaire governor if he prevails in his tight race against Democrat Amy Acton.

While state financial disclosures offer a limited view of his net worth, recent federal regulatory filings show Ramaswamy is twice as wealthy as when he first declared his candidacy in early 2025, according to a review by the Cincinnati Enquirer, part of the USA TODAY Network. His total holdings are now worth more than $2 billion, records show. Forbes magazine estimates he may now be worth close to $3 billion.

America has many millionaire politicians, but Ramaswamy’s wealth is in a different league. If elected, he’d be the second-richest governor after Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a Hyatt Hotel scion whose net worth is estimated at more than $4 billion, according to Forbes.

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In an interview with the Enquirer, Ramaswamy stressed he was not "born into wealth" and that his immigrant parents were middle-class, suburban Cincinnati residents. His father was an engineer at General Electric and his mother was a geriatric psychiatrist who worked in nursing homes. His father got a law degree from Northern Kentucky University, attending night school to strengthen his job security amid rampant layoffs at General Electric in the 1990s.

They sent young Vivek to a private all-boys Jesuit-run school just west of Cincinnati, where Ramaswamy was the valedictorian in 2003.

"Living the American Dream in starting from a humble upbringing to where I am today leaves me filled with gratitude," Ramaswamy said. "It's one of my motivations for running."

So, what investments have made the Cincinnati native (who now lives near Columbus) so much money and how did he get rich in the first place?

Here’s a closer look:

Investment income is chump change for Ramaswamy

Currently, Ramaswamy’s only job is running for office and his only income is from investments, state records with the Ohio Ethics Commission show.

In Ohio, candidates must disclose their sources of income, including dividends from investments. They must also list all investments worth more than $1,000 – but they aren’t required to reveal the size of those investments.

Ramaswamy’s disclosure reveals he received $1.1 million in investment income in 2025. Most of that was $769,000 in capital gains from the sale of part of his stock in two publicly traded companies: McDonald’s and BlackBerry, which are both listed as continuing investments. He also collected $342,000 in dividends from 25 of his investments.

That indicates Ramaswamy’s portfolio of dividend stocks is worth more than $20 million. For example, Ramaswamy collected $1,137 in dividends from Apple in 2025. The computer giant paid $1.04 per share in the last year. That indicates the candidate owns roughly 1,100 shares of Apple, a stake that was worth more than $320,000 as of June 23.

But federal filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission show all that is chump change for Ramaswamy.

Biotech company is Ramaswamy’s biggest holding

Ramaswamy founded Roivant Sciences after seven years of working at a New York-based hedge fund, QVT Investors, where he focused on the biotech industry.

Noticing big pharma companies had more unapproved drugs than they could fund in hopes of turning them into blockbuster medicines, he founded Roivant to buy potential medicines that major drug companies deemed less promising or a low priority. After buying unapproved drugs at a low price, Roivant would pursue clinical trials to develop new medicines.

Between 2015 and 2020, Ramaswamy sold off more than $200 million worth of his Roivant stock, but he remains a major shareholder. He stepped down as CEO of the company in 2021 and left its board of directors in 2023.

In the company’s last proxy, Ramaswamy was listed as a “beneficial owner” with direct stock and options tied to more than 80 million shares, or more than 11% of Roivant’s outstanding equity.

Specifically, the proxy states that Ramaswamy owns more than 37 million shares directly and co-owns another 13 million shares with his wife, Apoorva (worth $1.2 billion and $400 million, respectively, based on the stock’s June 23 closing price). He also has options to purchase more than 29.5 million shares of additional stock worth nearly $460 million.

In all, Ramaswamy’s Roivant stake is worth $2.1 billion.

Ramaswamy said his business acumen makes him uniquely qualified to be governor.

"I have an understanding of how investors allocate capital, how CEOs make decisions, how to actually lead as chief executive and to attract high-paying jobs into the state," he said. "I feel like I have a better ability to do that than perhaps any person in this state."

An early Roivant drug lost investors money

Roivant is a volatile company. It turned a profit of $4.2 billion in 2024, but has lost money every other year since going public in 2021.

In its latest fiscal year that ended March 31, Roivant generated only $8 million in revenue and lost nearly $300 million. The company also disclosed it had $4.3 billion in cash to support operations as it seeks profitability, a common "runway" figure reported by ventures such as biotech and start-up firms.

Since its founding, Roivant organized the drugs it was developing into subsidiary companies, which it called "vants," that could be spun off into separate ventures or sold. Its giant profit in 2024 happened after it sold its Telavant subsidiary, which was developing drugs for inflammatory bowel diseases, such as Crohn's.

An early venture, Axovant, was spun off in an initial public offering in 2015 and made a big splash – and Roivant a lot of money – before later crashing. The company was developing a drug, intepirdine, to treat Alzheimer's, and its stock doubled in value during its first day of trading.

But two years later, Axovant disclosed that the drug failed to help patients in late-stage drug testing. That sent the company stock into a tailspin, losing three quarters of its value in one day. The company, later named Sio Gene Therapies, ceased operations and liquidated assets in 2023. Roivant maintained a 25% stake in the company until its demise.

But wait – there’s more (money)!

After leaving his CEO role at Roivant, Ramaswamy became more interested in politics. In 2021, he became a best-selling author with the publication of his book, “Woke, Inc.,” which bashed corporate America for embracing diversity, equity and inclusion policies. In 2023, he co-founded the investment firm Strive Asset Management, which follows his “anti-woke” philosophy. He announced a run for president in 2023 and dropped out of the Republican primary after a fourth-place finish in the Iowa caucuses.

Ramaswamy is listed as a “beneficial owner” in the parent company of Strive’s proxy, with 5.7 million shares owned by himself and a trust with his name on it. The stake is worth nearly $80 million.

What’s driving the recent surge in Ramaswamy’s wealth?

Ramaswamy’s growing net worth stems from the surge in Roivant’s stock, which has more than tripled in value in the past year.

Shares have been on a tear since last fall, when the company reported encouraging results from a late-stage clinical study for the drug brepocitinib being tested to treat an autoimmune disease called dermatomyositis, which causes skin lesions and muscle weakness.

Roivant has also been buoyed by a settlement agreement over a patent dispute disclosed in March in which Moderna agreed to pay as much as $2.3 billion to Genevant Sciences (a Roivant subsidiary) and another firm to end a patent infringement lawsuit.

Roivant disclosed it expects to reap $770 million from the initial $950 million portion of the settlement. The settlement prompted the company to increase its ongoing share buyback plan (announced in summer 2025) to $1 billion.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Billionaire Ramaswamy's wealth has surged as he runs for Ohio governor