Ramaswamy's Thomas Jefferson: Superior PEU

Billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy appealed to young voters by comparing himself to Thomas Jefferson, the writer of America's highest ideals for white, male landowners.  Ramaswamy wants to revive those "1776" ideals.  

Most young voters are completely unaware that Thomas Jefferson used his Monticello slaves as collateral for loan.  

This act is more egregious as a friend already willed Jefferson more than enough money to free his slaves.  TJ, the "idealist," had ready access to this money but could not let "his property" go free.

Ramaswamy noted his appeal to America's youth:

"...Gen Z, where only 16 percent of them say they’re proud to be an American, where 60 percent of them say they would sooner give up their right to vote than to give up their access to Tik Tok."

Just as white, male landowners failed to protect women and people of color, America's current leaders have allowed the country's youth to be damaged by social media's sick algorithm-driven content, with Tik Tok being among the worst. 

Ramaswamy wants to bring Elon Musk management malpractice to the executive branch.  That would entail firing the vast majority of federal employees, driving away allies (as Musk did to advertisers), all so a billionaire could destroy a product in the name of making more billions.  No thank you.

Ramaswamy is a very rich man.  He made his first million working at QVT Financial, an investment firm.  He then targeted pharmaceuticals for even bigger money.

Fierce Healthcare wrote:

Ramaswamy's new biotech venture, Axovant ($AXON), are much discussed these days. The former hedge fund manager grabbed an abandoned GlaxoSmithKline drug for Alzheimer's for $5 million. He gathered a team together and without recruiting a single patient for a pivotal study of a marginal drug designed to treat symptoms of the disease, just raised $315 million in an upsized IPO that came in at the top of the range and promptly gyrated much higher today as investors bought in.

Axovant, with no track record, no experience and one questionable product, leaped onto the market worth much more than $1 billion.

The fact that someone can make something of this size out of virtually nothing should be of concern to everyone in the industry. Magical thinking will take you just so far 

Axovant tumbled before going belly up, dissolving earlier this year.  A 2018 proxy filing for Axovant showed "Family Relationships."  Axovant paid Vivek's mother over $220,000 in compensation.

 

Geetha Ramaswamy, M.D., the former Vice President of Medical and Scientific Strategy of Axovant Sciences, Inc. and an employee of Roivant Sciences, Inc., is the mother of Vivek Ramaswamy, the former Chairman of our Board of Directors and former Chief Executive Officer of Axovant Sciences, Inc.

 

During our fiscal year ended March 31, 2018, Geetha Ramaswamy earned total cash compensation, consisting of salary and bonus, of $133,900 and was granted a stock option with a grant date fair value, as computed in accordance with FASB ASC 718, of $87,868. There was no cash compensation earned by, or stock options granted to, Geetha Ramaswamy for our fiscal year ended March 31, 2019.

Axovant paid Vivek's brother received over $1.6 million for that same year.

Shankar Ramaswamy, M.D., the Chief Business Officer of Axovant Sciences, Inc. and a former employee of Roivant Sciences, Inc., is the brother of Vivek Ramaswamy. During our fiscal year ended March 31, 2018, Shankar Ramaswamy earned total cash compensation, consisting of salary and bonus, of $401,700 and was granted stock options with an aggregate grant date fair value, as computed in accordance with FASB ASC 718, of $1,209,627. During our fiscal year ended March 31, 2019, Shankar Ramaswamy earned total cash compensation, consisting of salary and bonus, of $442,500.

QVT supported Ramaswamy along the way by investing in his various "vant" companies.

QVT has long been a recognized investor in the biotech and healthcare industries, in both public and private markets. QVT was among the earliest and largest investors in Pharmasset and Medivation. QVT seeded and remains the largest investor in Roivant Sciences Ltd.

Roivant Sciences is one of Ramaswamy's "vant" companies.  It hit the NASDAQ stock exchange via an SPAC merger, led by KKR's former healthcare chief Jim Momtazee and his firm Patient Square Capital.  Momtazee was at KKR when it added billions in extra healthcare costs to hospital giant HCA. 

 

KKR is one of the oldest private equity underwriters (PEU) given its founding in 1976, (two hundred years after 1776).   KKR is older than Ramaswamy.

 

Vivek noted in one interview:

"I don’t dance to anybody else’s tune."

I'm afraid Ramaswamy dances in the PEU chorus line.  

...the 37-year-old Ohio native made hundreds of millions of dollars through a network of companies focused on prescription drug development.

Ramaswamy made his millions on the backs of citizens paying ever increasing amounts for prescription drugs.

PEU Peter Thiel helped launch another Ramaswamy company, Strive Asset Management.  Strive rang the NASDAQ opening bell earlier this year.  

The image is remarkably white, which brings us back to our founding father.  History shows Thomas Jefferson would be happy to use Ramaswamy as collateral for a loan.  It also suggests Jefferson wouldn't use his best friend's money to give Ramaswamy the freedom he currently enjoys. 

PEU Ramaswamy has a hard act to run on. 

Update:  Ramaswamy said that he could appeal to "voters of diverse shades of melanin."  That's rich for a Red Team opposed to diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.

Update 8-21-23:   Paul Krugman called out Ramaswamy as a "tech bro" and panned his understanding of economics.  Financelot noted similar aspects of Ramaswamy's history and said the candidate "isn't changing anything" about the system that granted him outsized rewards.

Update 8-22-23:  Vivek took on CNN's Kaitlin Collins over Taiwan.  Shame she didn't ask about his employing his mom and brother at the now defunct Axovant.  The mother got a separate paycheck from Roivant.  Mansplain that Mr. Ramaswamy.

Ramaswamy turned rama-swarmey with his "petulant teenager" insult of Kaitlin Collins.  

Millionaire Ramaswamy accepted scholarship money to Yale Law school after working for QVT Financial.

In 2011, the same year he accepted the award, Ramaswamy reported $2,252,209 in total income, according to his tax returns, which he released in June. He reported a total of $1,173,690 in income in the three years prior.

QVT has a private equity fund officially making Ramaswamy a former PEU. 

Politico reported Ramaswamy's firm QVT helped Martin Shkreli become a disgusting, obscene pharma profiteer.  

Update 8-23-23:  The Daily Beast asked why a Hindu would push Christian Nationalism?

Update 8-24-23:  Vivek's claims of unfair treatment by reporters took a hit with a recording of the candidate's actual words.

Ramaswamy failed to mention Hinduism's multiple gods in last night's debate introduction.  Was that Vishnu or Shiva he referenced last night?

Matt Stoller summarized Vivek's business career with this insight:

Vivek Ramaswamy's career seems to be one where he got rich, while his investors lost everything.

He has a dark history.

Pharma-bro Vivek got the attention of Tech-bro Elon Musk.  They can drive the quality out of anything in pursuit of ego and profits, both outsized.

Update 8-25-23:  The New Yorker called out Ramaswamy last December. 

Ramaswamy’s Roivant advisory board included several well-known Democrats, including Tom Daschle, the former Senate Majority Leader; Kathleen Sebelius, the former Secretary of Health and Human Services under President Barack Obama; and Donald Berwick, the former administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Dirty Daschle's association with Rama-swarmy is not a surprise.  Don Berwick's is a complete shock.  It shows anyone can be taken.  All three resigned after Ramaswamy wrote a WSJ op-ed after the Capital insurrection on January 6th.

Politicians Red and Blue love PEU, and increasingly, more are one.

Update 8-26-23:  Potential Red Team voters had a 13% unfavorable rating of Vivek before the debate and 32% after.   Elon Musk called Ramaswamy a very promising candidate.  Ramaswamy said he wanted Musk as a White House Advisor Giant Internet Troll.  Tech bros have caused much social harm.  Think what they can do in the White House.

Mostly a non-voter and "unaffiliated" Vivek chose the Insane Reds and went straight for the Office of the Presidency.  PEU Pharma Bro's from Harvard/Yale have the ego to do that.

Update 8-27-23:  Twitter X is now the home of the "blue tick" scammer.  Wait until Musk turns it into a super app with digital payments.  The scamming opportunities could be "next level."

Update 9-7-23:  A giant "Truth" sign fell on Ramaswamy at a campaign event.  Yes folks, it is a sign. 

Update 9-17-23:  Ramaswamy invoked Jefferson again this morning in a Fox News interview.  The host asked Vivek why is still in the race since he is trailing badly, does not want to be Trump's VP and voters find him increasingly irritating?

Update 10-25-23:  Roivant spent $15 million on a bowel disease drug and sold it for $5 billion.  Telavant is the division of Roivant that made the obscene profits.

Update 11-13-23:  Ramaswamy shows he has not the faintest connection to reality:

On Day 1, *instantly* fire 50% of federal bureaucrats.  Here’s how: if your SSN ends in an odd number, you’re fired.  That downsizes government by half. Absolutely *nothing* will break as a result.  It doesn’t violate civil service rules because mass layoffs are exempt.  SHUT IT… — Vivek Ramaswamy

Leveraging is the current game for billionaire wannabees.  That's how many billionaires arrived.  

Vivek leveraged lingering pharmaceutical drug candidates into billions of dollars while using offshore entities and employing family members. 

"Any theory is correct in its own world but it may not make contact with this world."--Dr. W. Edwards Deming

Vivek clearly is in his own bubble.