Former President Trump announced on Monday that Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, will serve as his running mate and vice presidential nominee for the 2024 election.
"After much deliberation and thought, and considering the tremendous talents of many others, I have decided that the person best suited to assume the position of Vice President of the United States is Senator J.D. Vance of the Great State of Ohio," Trump announced in a post on Truth Social.
Trump noted that Vance served in the Marine Corps and "graduated from Ohio State University in two years, Summa Cum Laude, and is a Yale Law School Graduate, where he was the Editor of The Yale Law Journal, and President of the Yale Law Veterans Association."
"J.D.'s book, ‘Hillbilly Elegy,’ became a Major Best Seller and Movie, as it championed the hardworking men and women of our Country. J.D. has had a very successful business career in Technology and Finance, and now, during the Campaign, will be strongly focused on the people he fought so brilliantly for, the American Workers and Farmers in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Minnesota, and far beyond," Trump wrote.
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Vance, 39, has served in the U.S. Senate for a little more than a year and a half after he defeated Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan in the 2022 election. While in office, he has become known for his populist views on economics and foreign policy.
He rose to fame after the 2016 publication of his memoir, "Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis." The book chronicled his upbringing in Middletown, Ohio, and his family's background in Kentucky and the poverty and cultural issues facing Appalachia.
The book was later adapted as a film by Netflix, called "Hillbilly Elegy," which was directed by Ron Howard and starred Glenn Close and Amy Adams.
Vance graduated from Yale Law School in 2013, then worked at a law firm and later moved to San Francisco to work in venture capital, joining Peter Thiel's firm Mithril Capital between 2016 and 2017.
He then joined AOL co-founder Steve Case's investment firm, Revolution LLC, where his role focused on the firm's "Rise of the Rest" initiative that aimed to provide funding for early stage companies in areas outside of Silicon Valley and other havens for technology firms.
Vance co-founded a venture capital firm in Cincinnati in 2019 called Narya Capital, with seed funding provided by Thiel, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and investor Marc Andreessen, who co-founded prominent Silicon Valley VC firm Andreessen Horowitz.
Thiel, one of the co-founders of PayPal, Palantir Technologies and the Founders Fund, was a prominent backer of Vance's Senate campaign and donated $10 million to a super PAC backing his candidacy.
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Vance invested in Rumble, an online video platform and hosting service that's popular with the political right, through Narya Capital and made a personal investment as much as $300,000 in the firm. His stake in the company may be worth $1.5 million.
