Is a corporate CV a path to the presidency?

White House candidates tout their private sector expertise, but is that enough to qualify them for a career in public service?

Illustration of GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy
Vivek Ramaswamy has drawn heavily upon his corporate past to make his case to the voting public, promising "mass layoffs to the D.C. bureaucracy"
(Image credit: Illustrated / Getty Images)

GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy is on a roll. While trailing former President Donald Trump by nearly 50 points in a recent Republican presidential primary poll, the man Politico dubbed the "self-described intellectual godfather of the anti-woke movement" has nevertheless managed to leapfrog a host of seasoned political aspirants and is, in some countings, tied with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for second place in the GOP standings. That DeSantis, long thought to be Trump's most acute primary threat, reportedly plans to train his guns on Ramaswamy in particular during the first Republican primary debate is a sign that the hedge fund turned biotech entrepreneur is a serious and significant candidate at this stage of the race, despite his total lack of personal political experience.

Instead, Ramaswamy has drawn heavily upon his corporate past to make his case to the voting public, promising "mass layoffs to the DC bureaucracy" during a recent interview with conservative broadcaster Erick Erickson. "It takes a combination of being, yes, an outsider, who's been a CEO" to "shut down the administrative state," Ramaswamy boasted, as he laid out plans to fire three-fourths of the federal bureaucratic workforce.

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Rafi Schwartz, The Week US

Rafi Schwartz has worked as a politics writer at The Week since 2022, where he covers elections, Congress and the White House. He was previously a contributing writer with Mic focusing largely on politics, a senior writer with Splinter News, a staff writer for Fusion's news lab, and the managing editor of Heeb Magazine, a Jewish life and culture publication. Rafi's work has appeared in Rolling Stone, GOOD and The Forward, among others.