Vivek Ramaswamy may have stake in company receiving more than $830 million from Ohio

In January last year, Gov. Mike DeWine was on stage in an airplane hangar outside Columbus touting the “single largest job creation and new payroll generating project in all of Ohio’s history.”

Anduril, a defense contractor specializing in autonomous weapons systems, had just announced it would build its new Arsenal-1 production facility next door to Rickenbacker Airport.

DeWine explained Anduril promised to create more than 4,000 new jobs with an average salary of $132,000 over the next 10 years — surpassing even the Intel facility in terms of employment.

“The future of American air power will be made right here in the state of Ohio,” DeWine bragged.

But if that agreement is good for Ohio’s workforce and DeWine’s legacy, it’s perhaps an even better deal for one of the men running to succeed him.

According to his financial disclosure, Republican Vivek Ramaswamy has a stake in the venture firm 8VC. That firm has invested in every round of Anduril’s fundraising.

Gov. DeWine lands biggest jobs deal in Ohio history with defense company Anduril’s new plant

How Ohio landed Anduril

To land the Anduril deal, Ohio offered the company an incentive package worth more than $830 million. JobsOhio made a $310 million grant and the Ohio Department of Development pitched in a tax credit worth more than $452 million.

Both incentives are tied to Anduril’s hiring commitments.

Additionally, the Department of Development put $70 million toward infrastructure upgrades to support the new Arsenal-1 plant.

“Anytime we do a deal,” then Lt. Gov. Jon Husted said at the Anduril event, “it’s contingent upon the company delivering what they promised. And we have not been afraid in any circumstance, including with General Motors, to go claw back any incentives that they don’t deliver on in terms of job creation.”

Although state officials do often claw back incentives or reduce tax breaks, a December report from Ohio Auditor Keith Faber makes it clear that’s not the norm.

The review found 39 of 60 companies in the previous fiscal year weren’t in compliance with their agreements.

Over the past four years, Faber found dozens of companies receiving loans or tax credits from the Department of Development failed to meet their commitments, but state officials took no action.

In a statement, Department of Development spokesman Mason Waldvogel said the department shares the auditor’s “goal of ensuring public resources are used responsibly and transparently, but it’s also important to note that this audit reflects only a snapshot in time.”

He noted in the months since, the department has “modified or rescinded several tax credit agreements noted as being noncompliant in the auditor report.”

As a private entity, JobsOhio is not required to publicly disclose the same amount of information.

The organization releases monthly reports detailing the deals it has struck, but in a footnote explains those commitments “are subject to change per possible project modifications.”

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Although the governor doesn’t have an explicit role in incentive decisions, they often take part in negotiations with high-profile prospective companies.

The governor also has significant levers to influence decision makers. The director of the Department of Development is part of the governor’s cabinet; the governor appoints JobsOhio board members to four-year terms.

If a company the governor favors, for whatever reason — financial, political, or something else — fell short of its commitments, the governor is in a position to influence the state’s response.

Alternatively, a governor might negotiate a longer or more generous deal with such a company.

8VC and Anduril

Anduril is operating at the intersection of artificial intelligence and modern warfare. The company promises a network of autonomous weapons systems that integrate seamlessly with soldiers on the battlefield.

Perhaps most important Anduril emphasizes the speed, scale, and cost at which they can operate. The company describes legacy defense systems that began development during the Cold War as “exquisite, costly, and slow.”

In contrast, Anduril says, it builds “lower-cost, more autonomous, mass producible vehicles and weapons.”

The company has drawn interest from some of the largest venture capital firms in the country.

Anduril Founder @PalmerLuckey on a future IPO

“We are definitely going to be a publicly-traded company. We are running this company to be the shape of a publicly-traded company.

“It is definitely in our roadmap”

Via @CNBC pic.twitter.com/oU8KvcUddk

— Jawwwn (@jawwwn_) June 10, 2025

In 2021, the company described raising $450 million in Series D funding. A year later it brought in $1.48 billion and then raised another $1.5 billion in 2024.

Last June, the company closed its Series G funding round with $2.5 billion, and it’s currently aiming to bring in another $4 billion.

That latest round of fundraising would push Anduril’s valuation to roughly $60 billion. Back in 2021, it was valued at just $4.6 billion.

Although another infusion of private capital suggests an initial public offering isn’t in the offing, company leaders have repeatedly said they plan to go public — likely meaning a windfall for investors who got in early.

Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale launched venture firm 8VC in 2015. The company has invested in every one of Anduril’s funding rounds, and Lonsdale’s 8VC company biography notes he personally was an early Anduril investor.

Ramaswamy’s Ohio financial disclosure indicates he has a stake in 8VC Fund III, L.P., but it says nothing about the current value of that investment.

The federal disclosure from Ramaswamy’s presidential run, however, shed a bit more light on his holdings.

When he filed those disclosures in June of 2023, Ramaswamy’s holdings in 8VC Fund III were worth somewhere between $500,000 to $1 million.

He held between $1 million and $5 million in a different fund described as 8VC Fund V, too.

That investment doesn’t show up on his more recent Ohio disclosure. In 2023, Ramaswamy also had a $50,000 to $100,000 on-demand capital commitment to 8VC Fund III that doesn’t appear on his current disclosure.

Ohio Capital Journal asked Ramaswamy’s campaign about his holdings and his plans for avoiding apparent conflicts of interest in office. Ramaswamy’s team didn’t respond.

What’s the big deal?

To critics, Ramaswamy’s connection to a private company receiving close to $1 billion in state incentives is unacceptable.

Innovation Ohio Research Director Terra Goodnight dismissed the financial disclosure as “the most honest thing” in Ramaswamy’s campaign.

“It shows exactly who benefits from his agenda: himself,” she said.

“Ramaswamy’s policies will use our tax dollars to line his own pockets — that’s just a fact,” she went on. “He likes to pretend to be an outsider, but he’s just one more corrupt politician looking to rip off Ohio.”

Cassandra Burke Robertson takes a more nuanced view. The Case Western Reserve University law professor heads up the school’s Center for Professional Ethics.

She explained conflicts of interest are context dependent. For instance, take a person who owns shares of an index fund.

“It’s kind of a classic example of you have a general interest in the market doing well, but you’re not beholden to any particular one (company),” Robertson said.

“You’re not likely to make any decisions based on the interest of any particular company, because your interest is so indirect and diffuse.”

On the other hand, she said, consider a person with a substantial share of their net worth and relatives’ jobs tied up in a family business.

“Then we would expect an ordinary public official to not make decisions that would be immediately affecting that business one way or the other,” she said, “because it would be too hard to put that interest aside, right?”

Robertson added that “relative value matters.”

A million dollars in a fund would be a big deal to her and many other Ohioans. But the same amount might not be that significant to a billionaire.

The future value of Anduril might be relevant as well. Robertson noted Palantir, another company borrowing its name from The Lord of the Rings, has seen its value rise dramatically since becoming a publicly traded company.

“So, I think there is a possibility that an interest that might look smaller up front could turn out to be bigger than it looks,” she said.

Forbes estimates Ramaswamy has a personal net worth of roughly $2.5 billion. About three years ago, he had at least $1.5 million invested with 8VC.

It’s not clear how valuable those holdings are now. What’s more, Ramaswamy’s potential stake in Anduril is mediated through an 8VC fund he doesn’t control. It’s also not clear how much of 8VC Fund III’s holdings are with Anduril.

Still, Robertson said it’s reasonable to ask for more transparency in that financial relationship.

Robertson explained a legal ethicist would judge a potential conflict of interest on whether a reasonable third party perceives a conflict.

Without additional information that’s not really possible. She said the field emphasizes that outside perspective because people tend to believe their financial interests won’t impact their decision making.

“People are notoriously bad at judging whether they themselves have a conflict,” Robertson said.

Follow Ohio Capital Journal Reporter Nick Evans on X or on Bluesky.

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