Vivek Ramaswamy intends to run for governor of Ohio, according to a person with knowledge of his thinking, but does not immediately plan to leave his high-profile role in Donald J. Trump’s government efficiency project.
Mr. Ramaswamy told Ohio allies of his plan on Friday after the state’s Republican governor, Mike DeWine, named Ohio’s lieutenant governor, Jon Husted, to fill the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Vice President-elect JD Vance.
Mr. Ramaswamy’s anticipated candidacy in his home state comes after he encountered some turbulence in Mr. Trump’s orbit.
Mr. Ramaswamy, a wealthy pharmaceutical entrepreneur who ran for president in the 2024 primary and lives near Columbus, had been considered for the Senate seat, and Mr. Trump had recently told him that he would be a good fit. Mr. DeWine, who cannot seek a third term under Ohio law, met with Mr. Ramaswamy last weekend, the governor said.
For now, Mr. Ramaswamy plans to continue working alongside Elon Musk at the new Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE, said the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity. He hopes to make some progress before turning his attention to running for the governor’s seat, which becomes open in 2026, the person said.
Mr. Ramaswamy, whose net worth a year ago was estimated by Forbes to be $960 million, is already engaged in the high-profile government cost-slashing project. He and Mr. Musk have taken meetings together on Capitol Hill and have announced grand — and many believe unrealistic — plans to cut $2 trillion out of the federal budget.
Given Mr. Musk’s vastly larger wealth and profile, however, it has not been an equal partnership, and Mr. Musk’s top lieutenant, Steve Davis, largely oversees the effort.
The news of Mr. Ramaswamy’s plans in Ohio could put an end to some mounting speculation in Republican circles about whether he planned to enter the federal government full time.
At times, Mr. Ramaswamy’s role in the incoming administration had appeared tenuous to some in Mr. Trump’s circle. There have been repeated complaints about Mr. Ramaswamy from people close to Mr. Trump, and, at times, from Mr. Trump himself.
Mr. Ramaswamy had been a vocal presence on the website X, owned by Mr. Musk, with posts that sometimes created consternation for the president-elect. But in recent weeks, after a high-profile clash with some of Mr. Trump’s most vocal supporters, he appears to have pared back some of his activity on the site, which generated chatter among online activists.
People close to Mr. Trump said he was unhappy about Mr. Ramaswamy’s splashy intervention into a heated online debate among conservatives over whether American companies should use H1B visas to bring in high-skilled workers.
In a lengthy December post on X, Mr. Ramaswamy blamed an American culture that venerated “mediocrity over excellence” as the reason such visas were needed.
An America that “celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers,” he wrote. His prescription: “More weekend science competitions, fewer Saturday morning cartoons. More books, less TV. More creating, less ‘chillin’. More extracurriculars, less hanging out at the mall.”
His comments, which were seen by many as condescending and which echoed Mr. Musk’s defense of H1B visas and criticism of American workers, elicited a widespread backlash from Mr. Trump’s hard-line allies. They included some of the most influential figures in right-wing media, among them Stephen Bannon, who served as Mr. Trump’s chief strategist in his first term and now commands a large audience of Trump voters through his podcast.
Mr. Bannon accused both Mr. Ramaswamy and Mr. Musk of selling out American workers. And while Mr. Trump has publicly supported their pro-H1B position, he is also said to have been privately unhappy about what many perceived to be the denigration of the Trump base by his two wealthy allies.
During the campaign, in one post on X in support of the visas, Mr. Musk agreed with someone who used a derogatory term conveying mental disability to describe American workers.
Mr. Trump was not happy to be dragged into a high-profile fight, and people close to him were unhappy having to expend capital with allies on the issue. But unlike Mr. Musk, who has supported Mr. Trump to the tune of several hundred million dollars in donations, Mr. Ramaswamy is seen as a less essential presence in Mr. Trump’s new orbit.
There had also been some tension in recent weeks between Mr. Musk and Mr. Ramaswamy over their approaches to the government-efficiency project. The two have their own allies and lawyers who work with them, and Mr. Musk has sharply criticized Mr. Ramaswamy in private conversations.
Mr. Ramaswamy has talked privately for some time about a campaign in Ohio. He burst onto the national political scene in 2023 as a long-shot candidate for president. And then he provided an early endorsement of Mr. Trump after dropping out of the Republican primary.
