Republican 2024 presidential candidate and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy has settled a lawsuit with the World Economic Forum (WEF) after the organization inaccurately associated him with their “Young Global Leaders” program.
Mr. Ramaswamy has been critical of the WEF and has alleged the organization put his name on its list of WEF “Young Global Leaders” despite him having no actual association with the group.
“I fundamentally disagree with the WEF agenda,” Mr. Ramaswamy said in a post on X, the platform formerly as Twitter, on April 18. “I’ve been one of the biggest crusaders in our country against it. They named me a ‘young global leader’ when I explicitly said no. Now it’s time to hold them accountable for it.”
Mr. Ramaswamy subsequently asked his followers on the platform if he should sue the WEF and by April 19 went ahead with the lawsuit. Among the allegations in his legal complaint was that the WEF listed him as one of their members in an apparent effort to undermine his criticisms of the organization.
The WEF’s decision to include Mr. Ramaswamy in their “Young Global Leaders” list played out around the same time Mr. Ramaswamy was publishing his book “Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam.” Mr. Ramaswamy made critical comments about WEF founder and CEO Klaus Schwab ahead of the book’s release, including calling Mr. Schwab the “patron saint of wokeism.”
On Tuesday, Mr. Ramaswamy confirmed in an emailed statement that he’d succeeded in the lawsuit through the settlement process.
“I have been the leading opponent in America of the World Economic Forum’s agenda, through two books and my most recent company, Strive, which finally put BlackRock and the ESG movement on their back foot,” he said. “Two years ago, the WEF tried to throw false bait by naming me a ‘Young Global Leader’ when I explicitly rejected their ridiculous award. They repeatedly failed to remove my name despite escalating demands, so I sued them. And we just succeeded. They met all of my demands in the lawsuit: a public apology, disavowal, and a commitment to never name someone again without their explicit permission.”
Mr. Ramaswamy included a copy of the WEF’s apology letter in his statement announcing the settlement.
“We write to apologize for this mistake,” read the WEF’s apology statement. “The Forum nominated you in 2021 as a YGL and, accordingly, listed you in several documents on its website. Shortly thereafter, the Forum learned that you did not wish to participate in its YGL program. The Forum then took steps to remove references to your name from its YGL lists, but inadvertently failed to remove your name from all publications on its website. The Forum acknowledges that this continued inclusion on a YGL document may have incorrectly implied an association with the Forum, and for that reason, the Forum apologizes for its unintentional error. In early 2022, the Forum changed its internal processes so that no future ‘Young Global Leaders’ would be included on its list without their consent.”
NTD News reached out to the WEF for further comment but did not receive a response by the time this article was published.
Mr. Ramaswamy said he received a settlement payment from the lawsuit and that he will donate it to the America First Policy Institute (AFPI) “because it stands for American interests against the WEF agenda.” AFPI is a right-leaning public policy think tank.
Mr. Ramaswamy did not specify how much money he would receive through the settlement agreement. The New York Post initially reported he had only sought a nominal $2,500 payment.