WEF founder didn't ask for 'full governmental control over nations' at ASEAN summit

The 43rd Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit was held in Jakarta, Indonesia, from September 5 to 7, 2023. The discussions were primarily about strengthening cooperation between member nations, public, state-owned enterprises, and private sectors in the Indo-Pacific region.

What is the claim?

An article titled “Klaus Schwab Urges World Leaders To Grant WEF Full Governmental Control Over Nations” was published by The People’s Voice on September 9. The People’s Voice is a website known for spreading misinformation and fabricating stories. This article claims the World Economic Forum (WEF) founder Klaus Schwab made the statement at the 2023 ASEAN Summit and that he “ordered government leaders to cooperate with the WEF or face losing power and influence in the new globalist landscape.” The article also ties in this claim with The Great Reset conspiracy theory. 

This article is circulating on social media with thousands of views. However, neither Schwab nor the WEF have made any such statement.

What we found

The People’s Voice article does not provide any evidence of Schwab demands for world leaders to give the WEG “full governmental control over nations” at the recent ASEAN Summit. It refers to his presence at the 2022 ASEAN Summit and the B20 Summit and claims that he has been pushing for The Great Reset agenda so that “unelected leaders of for-profit companies are in charge of society.”

We cross-checked this with all the panels at the 2023 ASEAN Summit live-streamed by Kementerian Bumn (Indonesia’s Ministry of State Owned Enterprises) on YouTube. Schwab was present only at the ASEAN-Indo-Pacific Forum panel on September 5 and can be seen speaking in the video below at the 1:29:47 mark.

Kementerian Bumn’s video titled “Opening ceremony and plenary session on three sub-themes of AIPF,” live-streamed on September 5, shows that Schwab only talked about cooperation between governments and businesses to innovate solutions to existing problems. He did not “order government leaders to cooperate with the WEF or face losing power and influence in the new globalist landscape,” as claimed by The People’s Voice.

Logically Facts contacted the WEF asking for clarification about whether Schwab “urged governments to grant the WEF ‘full governmental control’ over their nations” at the Summit or anywhere else. A WEF spokesperson responded with, “I can confirm that the World Economic Forum and our Chairman has never made such statements. This is false information spread to discredit the important work that the World Economic Forum does on serious global challenges.”

We found no credible news reports of Schwab making any such statements in the past either. The WEF founder’s comments about the fast-growing industries and how to make use of them for the betterment of societies have been misconstrued as a ploy to usher in The Great Reset, which is a conspiracy theory about a one-world government where all populations are under the control of the unelected elite. Logically Facts has previously debunked such false and misleading claims about Schwab and the WEF.

The verdict

WEF founder Klaus Schwab has never asked world leaders to grant the World Economic Forum complete governmental control over any nation. This is a made-up claim with a narrative pushing the Great Reset conspiracy theory. Therefore, we have marked this claim as false.