WEF’s Schwab didn’t write book about exterminating 4 billion people – The Associated Press

CLAIM: Klaus Schwab, the founder of the World Economic Forum, wrote a book that included a passage about a plan to kill billions of “useless eaters” through war, disease and starvation.

AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The passage comes from a book promoting conspiracy theories written by an author called John Coleman.

THE FACTS: An image featuring a page from a book has circulated across Facebook, Twitter and TikTok in recent weeks, with one large paragraph highlighted.

“At least 4 billion ‘useless eaters’ shall be eliminated by the year 2050 by means of limited wars, organized epidemics of fatal rapid-acting diseases and starvation,” the passage reads in part. The paragraph goes on to detail forms of mass extermination and brutal population control, and also includes racist references to Chinese and Japanese people.

A caption at the bottom of the image attributes the book to Schwab, who has published several books since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“For those of you that don’t know here’s that ambitious page from Klaus Schwab’s book,” the caption reads. “Make sure you read it all the way through, he’s obviously the voice of deep state.”

But the page matches text in Coleman’s 1992 book, “The Conspirators’ Hierarchy: The Committee of 300,” according to a version archived and republished online in 2017 by the Central Intelligence Agency.

The highlighted paragraph appears on page 103 of Coleman’s book. On the prior page, Coleman falsely attributes it to “The Open Conspiracy,” a utopian manifesto written by science fiction author H.G. Wells. The “useless eaters” paragraph does not appear in “The Open Conspiracy.”

The phrase “useless eaters” was invoked by Nazi propaganda advocating for the murder of disabled people, according to the United States Holocaust Museum.

The World Economic Forum, known for its annual conferences in Davos, Switzerland, has long been the subject of conspiracy theories — in particular, its “Great Reset” initiative, a post-pandemic economic plan championed by Schwab.

The WEF did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.