Indian American Vivek Ramaswamy, a Biotech Millionaire, Enters 2024 Presidential Race alongside Nikki Haley

The US Presidential race for 2024 is gaining momentum over the entry of another Indian American, Vivek Ramaswamy, a 37-year-old biotech millionaire. He made his presidential bid public through a tweet, “We’ve celebrated our “diversity” so much that we forgot all the ways we’re really the same as Americans, bound by ideals that united a divided, headstrong group of people 250 years ago. I believe deep in my bones those ideals still exist. I’m running for President to revive them.”

With Nikki Haley on the other end of the spectrum, the competition will be heating up between two Indian-origin Americans if Vivek Ramaswamy continues with his presidential run as long as possible. His promise to rekindle the American spirit, restore the culture of merit, and revive the national identity over diversity is the foundation of his 2024 US presidential bid, which also hinges on his call for “a Declaration of Independence from China – total decoupling”.

Who is Vivek Ramaswamy, a GOP hopeful for the 2024 presidential election? Born in Cincinnati, Ohio to an immigrant couple from Kerala, Mr Ramaswamy is a biotech entrepreneur, avid investor and published author with a net worth US$500 million. With a biology degree from Harvard and a law degree from Yale University in his portfolio, he made headlines as a wolf of Wall Street in 2015 when he brought the United States’ biggest biotech IPO to cash in the biotech bubble. Forbes Magazine featured him on the cover of its September edition as “The 30-year-old CEO conjuring drum companies from thin air”. He had established his first healthcare startup in 2014 to leverage technology in drug development.

His next shot at fame was when he published the book titled “Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam” in 2021. The New York Times bestseller, a critical take on stakeholder capitalism, pictures his vision for the American capitalism. Neither business nor technology takes center stage in his agenda for the 2024 presidential run. Rather, he is vocal about Americans’ national identity crisis:

“Faith, patriotism & family are disappearing. We embrace one secular religion after another—from wokeism to climatism—to satisfy our deeper need for meaning. Yet we cannot even answer what it means to be an American. The GOP can fill that void. E pluribus unum: from many, one. That is the dream that won the American Revolution; that reunited us after the Civil War, that won us two World Wars & the Cold War. That is the dream that still gives hope to the world. That is American exceptionalism.”

His primary agenda for the 2024 Presidential bid:

In his agenda for the presidential election 2024, Vivek Ramaswamy prioritizes fool-proof border security and removal of lottery-based immigration in favor of merit-based admission. He vows to check government forces that pressurize tech companies to censor free political expressions; he believes that one’s political expression is an American civil right. His other suggestions are:

• The United States should lead the world in sustainable energy by realistic climate programs that deter the economic growth of America but holds China unaccountable.
• The United States should achieve self-sufficiency in semiconductor manufacturing and protect the dominion of Taiwan by safeguarding key technologies.
• The United States should take measures to prohibit the use of TikTok by minors under 16 years.
• The United States should introduce financial regulations to make China find itself accountable for spreading the pandemic across geographies.
• The United States should prevent American companies from expanding into China until the Chinese government adopts fair trade practices.