Fact Check: Were Bill Gates and WEF's Klaus Schwab at G20 This Year?

The G20 summit, a conference attended by leaders from 20 of the world's largest economies, has drawn praise and skepticism on its stated commitments to solving global issues ever since it was formed more than 20 years ago.

Held this year in Bali, Indonesia, the event invited discussions on areas of international concern, including climate change and the global energy crisis, drawing heated comments from politicians, including Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov among others.

However, the weight of power and influence attached to the summit has made it a magnet for conspiracy theories, including those involving World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab and Bill Gates, who were claimed to be in attendance despite neither being a head of state.

The Claim

Multiple tweets claimed that Bill Gates and Klaus Schwab attended the G20 summit this month in Indonesia.

One tweet by right-leaning commentator Ezra Levant, which received more than 38,000 engagements, stated: "Why are Klaus Schwab (and Bill Gates) at the G20 Summit? Why are they participants on the same level as leaders of sovereign countries?"

Some of the tweets included pictures showing Schwab alongside leaders such as Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.

The Facts

The G20 was a two-day summit that took place on November 15 and 16.

The summit, described as "a strategic multilateral platform connecting the world's major developed and emerging economies" is an annual event involving the heads of state and governments of 20 of the world's largest economies, including the U.S.

Leaders this year met to hold conversations under the theme "Recover Together, Recover Stronger," which included discussions on food and energy security, climate and biodiversity and digital technology.

Indonesia also invited Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who gave a virtual speech listing a series of measures to end the war in his country.

However, the claims that Bill Gates and Klaus Schwab attended this G20 summit are misleading.

While Bill Gates has attended some of the previous G20 summits (including one at the request of former French President Nicolas Sarkozy), the Microsoft founder was not in Bali this week.

Although several reports prior to the summit claimed that Gates was planning to attend the event, he was in fact in Kenya, meeting with leaders and officials to discuss developments in health care, agriculture, and information technology.

Gates was interviewed by Kenyan press at the time the G20 summit was taking place and sent a number of tweets while in Nairobi showing him with the country's leaders.

While neither Bill Gates nor his former wife Melinda attended, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was among three organizations that have committed alongside G20 nations to the launch of an international "pandemic fund."

Some claimed on Twitter that the Microsoft founder had been filmed delivering a talk at the G20 on "death panels," a misleading term that's been used for more than a decade to describe end-of-life counseling practices in health care.

Although Gates uses this term in the video shared on Twitter, in reference to the disparaging characterization, it was filmed in 2010 at the Aspen Ideas Festival in Aspen, Colorado.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation also confirmed to Newsweek that Mr. Gates did not attend the G20 summit this year.

Klaus Schwab, the founder of the World Economic Forum (WEF), did go to Bali, but he was attending B20, a concurrent event that is part of the G20 summit that invites global business leaders for a series of keynote addresses and speeches.

Schwab was among a list of speakers, including SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who delivered talks at B20.

This nuance, however, was missing from the posts questioning why "non-politicians" were attending the summit in Bali.

Among other misleading claims about the WEF founder were those purporting he had been pictured at the summit alongside New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. However, these pictures were taken at the 40th and 41st Association of Southeast Asian Nations Summits held in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, between November 10 and 13.

While other photos were published of Schwab with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, these were taken outside of the G20 summit talks themselves (as evident from the contrast to the outfits worn during the world leader discussions).

The outfits attendees wore have themselves attracted misleading claims, including that the traditional Cambodian clothing was part of a uniform with links to former Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong, which was debunked by Reuters.

Both Bill Gates and Klaus Schwab have been common targets of conspiratorial claims and misinformation, particularly around COVID-19 and pandemic narratives.

Earlier this year it was falsely claimed that Klaus Schwab's father Eugen Schwab was a confidant of Adolf Hitler, while Bill Gates was said to have predicted this year's monkeypox outbreak based on a misleading interpretation of comments he'd made about possible bioterrorism attacks.

Newsweek has contacted G20 Indonesia, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the World Economic Forum for comment.

The Ruling

Misleading Material.

Bill Gates did not attend the G20 summit this year. The Microsoft founder was in Kenya during the conference in Indonesia as confirmed by Gates on Twitter alongside multiple news reports.

While Klaus Schwab was in Bali during the G20 summit and was photographed alongside world leaders, he was attending B20, a business-led event, which also hosted SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and others. Viral photos of Schwab with world leaders were actually taken outside of the G20 summit talks, and some were from a different event entirely.

FACT CHECK by Newsweek's Fact Check team