Did Bill Gates and Chief of World Economic Forum (WEF), Klaus Schwab, discuss during the 2008 WEF creating diseases, in order to reduce world's population? No, that's not true: Gates talked about his desire of limiting the effects of diseases, like AIDS and malaria, through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, in order to reduce mortality rates due to preventable diseases in developing countries.
The claim originated from a video published by TikTok user @bistriceanudragos (archived here) on July 5, 2023. It shows Ion Dragoș Horeaba, a known conspiracy theorist and spreader of disinformation on TikTok. He took elements of the discussion out of context and is saying in the video (translated into English by Lead Stories staff):
Gates and Schwab were talking about population reduction back in 2008.
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Thu Jul 13 07:40:52 2023 UTC)
During the 2008 annual meeting of WEF in Davos, Klaus Schwab, WEF Founder and Executive Chairman, and Bill Gates, had a discussion around a topic titled "A New Approach to Capitalism in the 21st Century." At the time, Gates had just left day-to-day operations at Microsoft in 2008, transitioning into a part-time role at the company. During their discussion, Schwab asked Gates what his main focus will be in his new full-time role at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, a private foundation that he founded with his then-wife, Melinda, in 2000.
Gates talked about the hopes and efforts of the foundation of eradicating, or partly limiting the effects and spread of around 20 diseases, such as AIDS and malaria, in order to reduce mortality rates due to preventable and curable diseases, especially in developing countries. Gates mentioned that within 15 years, he hopes that major effects would have been made and have an impact on decreasing the harm from at least half of these diseases.
