Photo credit: World Economic Forum/flickr
Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum (WEF), will step down from his leadership role, according to Semafor.
Schwab, 86, has headed the WEF since 1971. He reportedly announced his decision in an email sent today to staff. Semafor obtained the email.
At press time, there was no mention of Schwab’s decision to step down on the WEF website or social media accounts.
According to Semafor, Schwab will transition to a role as non-executive chairman, pending the Swiss government’s approval of the change, which is expected to become official by January 2025.
The WEF, based in Davos, Switzerland, hosts its annual meeting there each January.
WEF transitioning to global leader in public-private ‘cooperation’
Tim Hinchliffe, editor of The Sociable, told The Defender the change may still allow Schwab to exert considerable influence over the WEF.
“If the Semafor report is correct, Schwab will still be the non-executive chairman of the WEF, so he’ll probably remain influential behind the scenes within the organization while occasionally making public appearances,” Hinchliffe said.
In its report, Semafor cited a statement from a WEF spokesperson saying that the organization is “transforming from a convening platform to the leading global institution for public-private cooperation.”
Experts who have studied the WEF warned of the risks of such “public-private” partnerships, in remarks shared with The Defender.
Michael Rectenwald, Ph.D., author of “The Great Reset and the Struggle for Liberty: Unraveling the Global Agenda” said that despite Schwab’s decision, “the globalist organization will continue in its role as the prime mover in establishing ‘stakeholder capitalism,’ replete with its ‘public-private partnerships’ that amount to a global fascist world order.”
Rectenwald added:
“Schwab is responsible for inaugurating the ‘stakeholder’ regime with the United Nations’ attendant ‘environmental, social and governance’ index that distorts markets and establishes a climate-change cartel to control all the world’s resources while reducing the standard of living for the vast majority and curtailing, if not eliminating their freedom.”
Along similar lines, Seamus Bruner, author of “Controligarchs: Exposing the Billionaire Class, their Secret Deals, and the Globalist Plot to Dominate Your Life,” and director of research at the Government Accountability Institute, said Schwab is a “figurehead for the most powerful globalist interests — the ‘controligarchs.’”
These “controligarchs,” said Bruner, “will continue plotting ways to dominate every aspect of our lives as their new figurehead rises.” Schwab’s shift “is not the transition that should concern us most.” Instead, “it is the WEF’s transition from a ‘convening platform’ to ‘the leading global institution for public-private cooperation.’”
“That means that the WEF plans to expand its influence over our governments’ policies while remaining unelected, opaque and therefore totally unaccountable.”
WEF will continue to push for ‘technocratic takeover’ of society
According to Semafor, Schwab “is synonymous with the organization that he has managed for more than 50 years.”
The WEF’s annual meeting, originally called the European Management Forum, today “attracts dozens of high-ranking world leaders and CEOs each year,” including over 50 heads of state who attended this year’s meeting.
Business figures like Bill Gates and Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla have regularly attended the meetings.
“The WEF, though a nonprofit, is a remarkable business,” Semafor reported, citing the organization’s $500 million in revenue for the fiscal year ending March 2023 and cash reserves totaling 200 million Swiss francs ($219.5 million).
Attorney Greg Glaser, who focuses on issues related to privacy and technology, told The Defender that those attending the WEF’s annual meeting pay a high price tag — exceeding six figures — to participate. He said Schwab “built the WEF using an international pay-to-play model” akin to “a trade guild or fraternal organization.”
“WEF members contribute substantial funds to WEF and in return the WEF members enjoy a seat at the financial table, meaning they gain influence and insider information from fellow mega-corporations and government officials controlling public funds,” Glaser said.
“Schwab’s legacy of penetrating the cabinets of governments, his maniacal pursuit of unelected globalist policies — including the Great Reset, transhumanism and corporatism and fascism under the guise of public-private partnerships — will carry on through his successor, whomever that may be,” Hinchliffe said.
According to Semafor, Schwab didn’t name a successor. However, in the past year, the group’s executive board, led by WEF President Børge Brende, a former Norwegian conservative leader, has taken full executive responsibility.
Last year, Politico speculated that Brende is a possible successor to Schwab. Other names Politico cited include former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair and Christine Lagarde, head of the European Central Bank and former head of the International Monetary Fund, who Schwab previously said “could step in” for him.
Semafor reported that the WEF “operates much like a family business,” with his children and wife holding high-level positions within the organization.
Hinchliffe said that regardless of who succeeds Schwab, the WEF is unlikely to shift its policy agenda significantly. He said:
“If current WEF president Børge Brende were to become Schwab’s successor, we would still get the same tyrannical policies that have always been pushed.
“The WEF will continue to push for the total technocratic takeover of society through the merger of corporation and state, the fusion of humans and machines, and the Orwellian use of technologies emerging from the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution that blurs our physical, biological and digital identities.”
Last month, mainstream media fact-checkers, including from Reuters and Euronews, refuted rumors that Schwab was seriously ill, hospitalized or deceased.
“I can confirm that Professor Schwab is in excellent health and that he has not been to hospital recently,” a WEF spokesperson told Reuters on April 23.
WEF has promoted Great Reset, digital ID, metaverse, consumption of insects
The WEF has generated controversy with its public proclamations, and those made by several participants at its annual meetings, regarding the future of humanity.
A 2016 WEF video predicted that by 2030, “You’re going to own nothing [and] you’ll be happy.”
That year, the WEF also introduced its vision for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which it claimed is “characterized by a fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital, and biological spheres.”
In 2017, Gates and Jeremy Farrar, former director of the Wellcome Trust and now chief scientist of the World Health Organization (WHO), launched the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) at that year’s WEF meeting. CEPI is attempting to develop a platform allowing vaccine development within 100 days.
In June 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the WEF introduced the “Great Reset,” claiming the pandemic was an opportunity for all countries to “act jointly and swiftly to revamp all aspects of our societies and economies” and was our “best chance to instigate stakeholder capitalism.”
At the WEF’s annual meeting last year, Schwab opined the importance of “mastering the future.” At this year’s meeting, he referred to participants as “trustees of the future.”
This year’s meeting also cited “misinformation” — not war or poverty — as the top threat facing humanity over the next two years.
Participants at this year’s meeting also warned of the dangers of “the wrong leaders” being elected in key national electoral contests this year. They suggested that digital ID could be used to track the unvaccinated. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned of the pandemic risk posed by a yet-unknown “Disease X.”
The WEF also helped promote or support a range of initiatives, including the metaverse, national digital ID programs, gene-editing technology, the censorship of online content using artificial intelligence (AI), AI-generated clinical trial “participants” and has said there are “solid, rational reasons” to implant microchips in children.
Glaser said these initiatives, which he called “bizarre,” resulted in “public relations damage” for the WEF that is irreversible — but the initiatives will continue to influence global policy.
“Schwab will forever be known as that ‘eat ze bugs‘ guy. Terrible public relations is a likely reason he is ‘stepping back.’ But Schwab has effectively accomplished what he intended decades ago,” Glaser said, citing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, which he said “are speeding ahead” toward their target date of 2030.
“I don’t think there will be a successor who will ever come as close to a Bond villain-like character as Schwab,” Hinchliffe said.
“His plans for world domination spoken through a thick German accent would make him an almost laughable caricature if it weren’t for how powerful and influential he’s become ever since Henry Kissinger took him under his wing at Harvard in the 1960s.”
Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D., based in Athens, Greece, is a senior reporter for The Defender and part of the rotation of hosts for CHD.TV’s “Good Morning CHD.”
