Did Vivek Ramaswamy Pay for a ‘Flattering’ Wikipedia? What We Know

Vivek Ramaswamy built on his growing prominence to attempt to grab the spotlight—successfully, some analysts say— during the first televised GOP primary debate on Fox News Wednesday night.

Ramaswamy, the 38-year-old biotech entrepreneur who was initially seen as an outsider, has seen his star shine increasingly in recent weeks, with one leading bookmaker now putting him ahead of Ron DeSantis following his appearance alongside fellow candidates on Wednesday evening.

His debate performance followed almost immediately comments, seen as offensive by many, that he recently made to The Atlantic suggestive of federal involvement in 9/11. Ramaswamy later told CNN that he had been misquoted, only for The Atlantic to later release audio from its interview which refuted that claim.

It is not the only time Ramaswamy has been accused of trying to alter his record.

Vivek Ramaswamy speaks during an interview following the first Republican presidential primary debatein Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on August 23, 2023. A social media post sent during the debate claimed that Ramaswamy altered his Wikipedia page to give him a more “flattering” profile. KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI/AFP via Getty Images

A widely shared post on X, formerly Twitter, published during the GOP debate, alleged Ramaswamy previously paid to have his Wikipedia entry altered to provide a more “flattering” profile.

The @depthsofwiki account, which chronicles amusing entries and changes on the online editable encyclopedia, posted on August 24, 2023, that he “paid someone from Upwork to make his Wikipedia more flattering.”

The post included a screengrab of what looked like a list of changes made to Ramaswamy’s page between February 14 and March 9, 2023. Most of the changes in the screengrab appear, from the screengrab alone, to be grammatical or structural.

Edits to Ramaswamy’s main Wikipedia page were made earlier this year by user Jhofferman, who later said changes were “at the request of the client” adding they were “hired and began the revision before he [Ramaswamy] declared his candidacy.”

Jhofferman’s user page states “they have been paid by Vivek Ramaswamy for their contributions to Wikipedia.” A representative for Ramaswamy told Newsweek that factual errors were corrected.

According to the Wikipedia editing history, lines about his receipt of a Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans in 2011 were removed. The fellowship is recorded on the Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans website. It has since been re-added to Ramaswamy’s entry.

Ramaswamy has publicly criticized billionaire investor and philanthropist George Soros, who is frequently a GOP target, on social media.

The history also shows a paragraph was deleted on February 9, 2023, about Ramaswamy’s role in the Ohio COVID Response team. This has been partially reinstated.

The U.S. response to COVID and its vaccine policy has been widely criticized by fellow 2024 GOP candidate, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Although Ramaswamy has not been as adamant in his views as DeSantis, an article by the Washington Examiner in August showed that he denied supporting COVID proposals on the use of masks, despite previously calling it “sensible.”

‘Cultural Thought Leader’

An article by MediaITE in May 2023, first reported that Ramaswamy had paid a Wikipedia editor “to remove potentially politically damaging details about his past from his page.”

In response to an inquiry from another Wikipedia editor about the MediaITE article, Jhofferman wrote: “I wasn’t hired to delete material about the Soros Fellowship and his Covid-era role, but it’s not inaccurate to say that he ‘paid to have it scrubbed.'”

Other editors brought up the changes with Jhofferman, which have been recorded on a Wikipedia discussion page.

One entry logged by Wikipedia on February 11, 2023, shows the descriptor “commentator” for Ramaswamy was changed to “cultural thought leader.”

This change was picked up by another editor who said: “I really don’t see how the phrase could be seen as anything other than unsourced and essentially meaningless puffery.”

Jhofferman added in further comments that they “repeatedly” explained to their client “that Wikipedia is not simply another marketing tool and that many of the things they wanted were not acceptable.”

They added: “Aside from keeping an eye on the site to ensure that basic facts aren’t changed (like his wife’s name, which someone had altered), I’ve finished my work and am no longer being paid.”

An archive of the Wikipedia page from May included a warning banner that said the neutrality of the article had been disputed, contained “paid contributions,” and that a “major contributor to this article appears to have a close connection with its subject.”

That warning has since been removed, but a note saying the article “contains paid contributions” remains.

Ramaswamy’s team does not appear to have publicly disputed Wiki editor Jhofferman’s claims that they were paid to edit the politician’s account.

“We made sure there were accurate facts in the wikipedia,” a spokesperson for Ramaswamy told Newsweek. “There was such blatant factual inaccuracies (his wife’s last name, for instance, that they lived in New York, they live in Ohio) we ensured accuracy.”