World
No, the head of the World Economic Forum is not dead
Rumours have emerged online that the WEF’s executive chairman and founder, Klaus Schwab, has been hospitalised, arrested, and may even be dead. The Cube takes a look at where the false claims have come from.
Social media users have been claiming that the World Economic Forum (WEF) executive chairman and founder, Klaus Schwab, was recently admitted to hospital in a serious condition.
A large number of posts on X spreading the rumours have been seen and shared thousands of times. Some of them link his supposed condition to a cardiac incident after running, while others even go as far as claiming he may be dead.
None of these claims is true.
It seems like the allegations stemmed from satirical articles, such as this one from the website Weekly Crier.
It doesn’t provide any details about Schwab’s supposed hospitalisation, nor does it cite any sources.
The website’s own “About Us” page says that it posts “satire and comedic opinion pieces and editorials”, alongside supposedly “reliable and unbiased news and information”.
Not only that, the WEF has confirmed that Schwab is in perfectly good health.
The organisation has said that the claims are “entirely baseless and unfounded” and that Schwab’s health is “excellent”.
It added that, like many high-profile individuals and organisations, he has routinely been the target of conspiracy theories and misinformation campaigns.
They’re not wrong: the claims about Schwab’s health came in lockstep with other misleading allegations that the US Delta Force arrested Schwab at his home in Switzerland.
An article by website Real Raw News said that a Delta Force strike team apprehended Schwab after a “deadly firefight” in his house, and that he was found in bed connected to an adrenochrome infusion machine.
Once again, this appears to be an attempt at satire.
Real Raw News’s “About Us” page also says that the website contains “humour, parody and satire”, but that hasn’t stopped the claims from also doing the rounds on social media.
Various posts on X, Reddit and Facebook have all shared the allegations out of context, although some of them at least with a dose of scepticism.
The WEF hasn’t made any reference to an arrest, and a quick Google search for the story from more reliable news outlets doesn’t yield any results.