His parents had moved from Switzerland to Germany during the Third Reich in order for his father to assume the role of director at Escher Wyss AG, an industrial company and contractor for the Nazi regime.

[15] While attending Harvard, Schwab found a mentor in future National Security Advisor and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

In October 2004, Figueres resigned[22] over his undeclared receipt of more than US$900,000 in consultancy fees from the French telecommunications firm Alcatel while he was working at the Forum.

[29] In January 2017, Steven Poole in The Guardian criticised Schwab's Fourth Industrial Revolution book,[30] pointing out that "the internet of things" would probably be hackable.

He also criticised Schwab for showing that future technologies may be used for good or evil, but not taking a position on the issues, instead offering only vague policy recommendations.

The Financial Times' innovation editor found "the clunking lifelessness of the prose" led him to "suspect this book really was written by humans—ones who inhabit a strange twilight world of stakeholders, externalities, inflection points and 'developtory sandboxes'.

The Swiss radio and television corporation SRF mentioned this salary level in the context of ongoing public contributions to the WEF and the fact that the Forum does not pay any federal taxes.

[35] Moreover, the former Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung journalist Jürgen Dunsch made the criticism that the WEF's financial reports were not very transparent since neither income nor expenditures were broken down.

[37][38] On June 29, 2024, The Wall Street Journal published an article, authored by staff reporters Shalini Ramachandran and Khadeeja Safdar, stating that Schwab is accused by former WEF employees of having engaged in two instances of sexual harassment.

Schwab grew upset that she would not be able to continue working at the same pace, people familiar with the incident said, and told her she was not suited for her new leadership role.

[42] In June 2021, Schwab sharply criticised the "profiteering", "complacency" and "lack of commitment" of the municipality of Davos in relation to the WEF annual meeting.