(Editor’s Note: In an exclusive article for Breitbart News, GAI Research Director Seamus Bruner analyzes the news that Klaus Schwab is stepping down from his post at the World Economic Forum. Bruner is the author of three books including his most recent, Controligarchs: Exposing the Billionaire Class, Their Secret Deals, and the Globalist Plot to Dominate Your Life.) An excerpt follows:
Klaus Schwab started his symposium with $6,000 in seed money and turned it into the World Economic Forum (WEF)—an impressive cash machine that generates approximately $500 million per year.
As recently as last year, the consensus from WEF insiders was that Schwab would likely die in office—like a monarch or the Pope. In 2017, Schwab had tapped the former Norwegian foreign minister, Børge Brende, to serve as president. Brende is widely described as a “conservative” politician though his high-ranking positions at the United Nations, the Bilderberg Conference, and a bevy of other supranational globalist side gigs, his resume betrays his Schwabian priorities.
Before joining WEF, Brende created a scandal in Norway when his office was accused of violating the country’s foreign aid principles by funneling millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation.
Despite Brende’s 2017 promotion, Schwab officially remained in full command of the organization. And it is easy to see why the prototypical “Davos Man” might want to remain in power: Davos has been extremely profitable for the Schwab family—especially Klaus and his wife who’ve raked in millions of dollars to their own pockets and tens of millions to their private foundation.
World Economic Forum (WEF) Founder and Executive Chairman Klaus Schwab (right) speaks with Managing Director Borge Brende on January 18, 2012, during a news conference at the WEF headquarters in Cologny, Switzerland. (FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP via Getty Images)
Schwab’s children and nephew have all been on WEF’s generous payroll over the years and the Schwab’s private air travel, meals, and a palatial estate (that was conjoined with the posh Davos headquarters campus after WEF spent $80 million to purchase the adjacent parcels) were just some of the many perks that the WEF founder enjoyed.
But this week, Schwab announced that he will indeed be stepping down as WEF’s Executive Chairman by January 2025 when he will assume his new role of Chairman of the Board of Trustees.
This may feel like a distinction with minimal difference and that is because it is. Schwab’s successor—widely expected to be Brende, who has been running the day-to-day for the past year—will be handpicked by him, according to Article 11 of the WEF’s governing statutes which states that “the founder designates his successor.”