World Economic Forum leader Klaus Schwab in good health on April 15, despite social media claims

World Economic Forum founder and executive chairman Klaus Schwab, whose organization annually hosts a conference for global leaders in Davos, Switzerland, has been a lightning rod for conspiracy theorists opposed to globalization. 

PolitiFact has debunked numerous claims about Schwab, including that Schwab wants to end car ownership, called for AI to replace elections and that he and global elites want to control the world through a plan they call "The Great Reset."

A new claim surfaced this week that says Schwab, 86, had been hospitalized and is in critical condition.

"WEF founder Klaus Schwab in hospital," said an April 15 Facebook post that directed readers to an article linked in the comments.

The post linked to an April 15 article in The Raging Patriot, a conservative news website, with the headline, "World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab in critical condition."

This post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

We found multiple social media posts across platforms sharing the claim that Schwab had been hospitalized. 

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But we found no news coverage from reliable outlets on Google or in Nexis news archives about Schwab being hospitalized, an event that would generate news coverage given his prominence. Nor did the World Economic Forum announce on its website or social media channels that Schwab had fallen ill.

(Facebook screenshot)

World Economic Forum spokesperson Yann Zopf told PolitiFact in an email that "these claims are entirely baseless" and that the organization is among many that are frequent targets of mis- and disinformation.

The Raging Patriot article was light on details about Schwab, saying only that he "was reported to be critically ill and has been admitted to the hospital recently," but that "the nature of his hospitalization and his current condition have not been disclosed." The article went on to criticize the World Economic Forum for several paragraphs.

The article shared an X post from Jim Ferguson, a British businessman and former political candidate with 204,000 followers. Ferguson’s post shared word-for-word several paragraphs from an article from another website, The Weekly Crier, which had no byline and provided no source for the claim. 

The Weekly Crier’s "About Us" section says it provides unbiased, factual news, "as well as satire, and comedic opinion pieces and editorials." The website was registered Jan. 18.

We rate the claim that Schwab was hospitalized in critical condition as of April 15 False.  

PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.