WEF’s Klaus Schwab didn’t admit a revolution is destroying his ‘Great Reset’ agenda

Klaus Schwab, the World Economic Forum’s founder and executive chair, has become something of a conspiracy theorist’s bogeyman in recent years. 

In 2023, we fact-checked claims that Schwab:

• Announced "the end of car ownership." He can’t and didn’t do that.

• Said the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda is "failing." We found no evidence of that.

• Called for artificial intelligence technology "to replace democratic elections." Schwab raised a hypothetical scenario about AI’s future. He didn’t advocate for replacing elections.

• Admitted he plans to "implement China-style forced COVID lockdowns all over the world during the ‘next pandemic.’" We found no evidence he said this, either.

With those False ratings in mind, if a social media post claims Schwab said something inflammatory, it bears a second look — so a post pointing to an alleged Schwab sentiment caught our eye. 

"Klaus Schwab Admits ‘Political Revolution’ Against The ‘Great Reset’ Is Destroying His Agenda," read the headline in a Jan. 20 Instagram post. 

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.)

The original article with that matching headline was published Jan. 19 on The People’s Voice, a website known for spreading misinformation. We’ve repeatedly fact-checked the site’s false headlines, and Baxter Dmitry — who wrote the article — is a byline seen often on misinformation sites. 

Featured Fact-check

Threads posts

stated on October 26, 2024 in a Threads post

Four Florida counties had “zero results” Oct. 26, and “something underhanded might be happening.”

(Screenshot from Instagram)

The article does not attribute the headline’s sentiments to Schwab. It doesn’t quote Schwab at all, but an X post embedded in the story includes a clip of Schwab delivering a speech. 

"You have this anti-system movement," Schwab says in the clip. "What we are seeing is a revolution against the system. So, fixing the present system is not enough." 

PolitiFact contacted the World Economic Forum, but did not immediately hear back. A World Economic Forum spokesperson told The Associated Press that the speech in the X post was from 2017. 

Schwab spoke about "the challenges of globalism" at the 2017 World Governments Summit. 

Schwab’s 2017 remarks contained no mention of "The Great Reset" — the name given to a set of World Economic Forum policy ideas for economic recovery during the pandemic. 

The initiative became a widely debunked conspiracy theory, with proponents believing elites aiming to establish a totalitarian global regime used the coronavirus to depopulate Earth and reorganize society. 

Schwab delivered his 2017 speech well before the "Great Reset" pandemic recovery concept existed.  

We found no other published articles or credible information that show Schwab ever said a revolution is destroying his "Great Reset" agenda.

We rate the claim that Schwab said a political revolution against the "Great Reset" is destroying his agenda False. 

RELATED: Claim that Klaus Schwab’s daughter warned of climate lockdowns is from misinformation site