[4] The World Economic Forum and its annual meeting in Davos have received criticism over the years, including allegations of the organization's corporate capture of global and democratic institutions, institutional whitewashing initiatives, the public cost of security, the organization's tax-exempt status, unclear decision processes and membership criteria, a lack of financial transparency, and the environmental footprint of its annual meetings.

At the 1994 annual meeting, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and PLO chairman Yasser Arafat reached a draft agreement on Gaza and Jericho.

[16][17] In October 2004, the World Economic Forum gained attention through the resignation of its CEO[18] and executive director José María Figueres over the undeclared receipt of more than US$900,000 in consultancy fees from the French telecommunications firm Alcatel.

He sharply rebuked the current populist movements that would introduce tariffs and hinder global commerce, warning that such protectionism could foster isolation and reduced economic opportunity.

On his first international trip to Davos, he emphasized liberal economic policies despite his populist agenda, and attempted to reassure the world that Brazil is a protector of the rain forest while utilizing its resources for food production and export.

[29] Environmental concerns like extreme weather events, and the failure of climate change mitigation and adaptation were among the top-ranking global risks expressed by WEF attendees.

Managing board members are Børge Brende, Julien Gattoni, Jeremy Jurgens, Adrian Monck, Sarita Nayyar, Olivier M. Schwab, Saadia Zahidi, and Alois Zwinggi.

[47] The WEF is chaired by founder and executive chairman Professor Klaus Schwab and is guided by a board of trustees that is made up of leaders from business, politics, academia and civil society.

As of 2024, the board of trustees is composed of: Queen Rania of Jordan, Mukesh D. Ambani, Ajay S. Banga, Marc Benioff, Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, Thomas Buberl, Laurence D. Fink, Chrystia Freeland, Orit Gadiesh, Kristalina Georgieva, Fabiola Gianotti, Al Gore, Andre Hoffmann, Paula Ingabire, Joe Kaeser, Christine Lagarde, Yo-Yo Ma, Patrice Motsepe, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Lubna S. Olayan, David M. Rubenstein, Ulf Mark Schneider, Klaus Schwab, Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Jim Hagemann Snabe, Julie Sweet, Feike Sijbesma, Heizō Takenaka and Zhu Min.

[48] Members of the board of trustees (past or present) include: Al Gore, Herman Gref, André Hoffmann, Carlos Ghosn, Christine Lagarde, Chrystia Freeland, David Rubenstein, Ernesto Zedillo, Fabiola Gianotti, Feike Sijbesma, Heizō Takenaka, Indra Nooyi, Jack Ma, Jim Hagemann Snabe, José Ángel Gurría, Josef Ackermann, Klaus Schwab, Kofi Annan, Laurence Fink, Leo Rafael Reif, Luis Alberto Moreno, Marc Benioff, Mark Carney, Maurice Lévy, Michael Dell, Mukesh Ambani, Muriel Pénicaud, Niall FitzGerald, Orit Gadiesh, Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, Peter Maurer, Queen Rania of Jordan, Rajat Gupta, Susan Hockfield, Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Tony Blair, Mark Schneider, Ursula von der Leyen, Yo-Yo Ma, Zhu Min, Ivan Pictet, Joseph P. Schoendorf Peter D. Sutherland and Victor L. L. Chu..[8][49][50] The foundation is funded by its 1,000 member companies, typically global enterprises with more than five billion dollars in turnover (varying by industry and region).

[53] The flagship event of the World Economic Forum is the invitation-only annual meeting held at the end of January in Davos, Switzerland, bringing together chief executive officers from its 1,000 member companies, as well as selected politicians, representatives from academia, NGOs, religious leaders, and the media in an alpine environment.

[63][64] The event brought together approximately 3,000 global leaders from over 125 countries, including 350 Heads of state and government, business executives, policymakers, and representatives from international organizations.

[72][73] The event featured key figures such as Ursula von der Leyen, Antony Blinken[74], Christian Lindner[75], and Sam Altman,[76] alongside representatives from the United Nations[77], International Monetary Fund, and World Bank.

[89] In 2007, the foundation established the Annual Meeting of the New Champions (also called Summer Davos), held annually in China, alternating between Dalian and Tianjin, bringing together 1,500 participants from what the foundation calls Global Growth Companies, primarily from rapidly growing emerging countries such as China, Russia, Mexico, and Brazil, but also including quickly growing companies from developed countries.

The project is funded by private and governmental donors, with an initial investment of US$460m from the governments of Germany, Japan and Norway, plus the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Wellcome Trust.

[122] The Forum emphasized its 'Environment and Natural Resource Security Initiative' for the 2017 meeting to achieve inclusive economic growth and sustainable practices for global industries.

Some critics see the WEF's increasing focus on activist areas such as environmental protection[135] and social entrepreneurship[136] as a strategy to disguise the true plutocratic goals of the organisation.

[148] A number of NGOs have used the World Economic Forum to highlight growing inequalities and wealth gaps, which they consider to have been neglected, or even to be exacerbated, through institutions like the WEF.

[150] "You'll own nothing and be happy" is a phrase adapted from an essay written by Ida Auken in 2016 for the WEF, pondering a future in which urban residents would rely on shared services for many expensive items such as appliances and vehicles.

[157] In his 2004 article "Dead Souls: The Denationalization of the American Elite", Huntington argues that this international perspective is a minority elitist position not shared by the nationalist majority of the people.

[179] A writer in the German magazine Cicero saw the situation as academic, cultural, media and economic elites grasping for social power while disregarding political decision processes.

[183] The German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung criticised in this context that the WEF had turned into a "money printing machine", which is run like a family business and forms a comfortable way to make a living for its key personnel.

They highlight that "despots" such as the son of the former Libyan dictator Saif al-Islam al-Gaddafi had been invited to the WEF and even awarded membership in the club of "Young Global Leaders".

[165] Even after the beginning of the Arab spring in December 2010 and related violent uprisings against despot regimes, the WEF continued to invite Gaddafi to its annual meeting.

Even in 2020, participants travelled to the WEF annual meeting in Davos on around 1,300 private jets while the total emissions burden from transport and accommodation were enormous in their view.

[186] In September 2019, more than 400 civil society organizations and 40 international networks heavily criticised a partnership agreement between WEF and the United Nations and called on the UN Secretary-General to end it.

[188] The Dutch Transnational Institute think tank summarises that we are increasingly entering a world where gatherings such as Davos are "a silent global coup d'état" to capture governance.

[177] In 2019, the Swiss newspaper WOZ received a refusal of its accreditation request for the annual meeting with the editors and subsequently accused the World Economic Forum of favoring specific media outlets.

[189] In addition to economic policy, the WEF's agenda is in recent years increasingly focusing on positively connoted activist topics such as environmental protection[114] and social entrepreneurship,[190] which critics see as a strategy to disguise the organisation's true plutocratic goals.

[201] In June 2021, WEF founder Klaus Schwab sharply criticised what he characterized as the "profiteering", "complacency" and "lack of commitment" by the municipality of Davos in relation to the annual meeting.