The secretive Bilderberg Group is back to meeting for the 68th time after a two-year break due to the pandemic. The meeting took place from June 2-5 at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Washington, D.C. This year's agenda featured geopolitics, Ukraine, the pandemic, and, of course, disinformation.
Bilderberg Agenda 2022
During this meeting, reporting journalists are unable to attend and participants are supposedly sworn to secrecy. The secrecy policy is allegedly a "way to allow members to speak their minds freely without outside scrutiny."
The first conference took place on May 29-May 31, 1954, in the Netherlands. According to the website, the annual meeting is organized by the Foundation Bilderberg Meetings. Expenses "of maintaining the small secretariat of Bilderberg Meetings are covered wholly by private subscription," and the hospitality costs are covered by the "steering committee members and the host country." The members of the steering committee are elected and serve for a term of four years and can be re-elected. The Bilderberg group and its meetings are "designed to foster dialogue between Europe and North America."
Attendees at the 2022 Bilderberg Meeting
The meeting hosted 120 participants from 21 countries. World leaders, business titans, investment bankers, non-reporting media outlets, energy companies, university professors, Tech giants, heads of the CIA and the National Security Council, pharmaceutical companies, and foreign policy wonks. Notable attendees included:
- Arizona Senator, Krysten Sinema
- Peter Thiel of Thiel Capital LLC
- James Baker, Director Office of Net Assessment for the DOD
- British CEO and Cofounder Demis Hassabis of Deep Mind, an A.I. deep learning company
- National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and long-time participant
- Henry Kissinger, 99, who has allegedly attended the meetings since 1957
- CISA Director, Jen Easterly
- CIA Director, William J. Burns
- Albert Bourla (USA), Chairman and CEO, Pfizer Inc.
- Emma Walmsley (GBR), CEO, GlaxoSmithKline plc
- Mary Kay Henry (USA), International President, Service Employees International Union
- Adewale Adeyemo (USA), Deputy Secretary, Department of The Treasury
- Yann LeCun (USA), Vice-President and Chief AI Scientist, Facebook, Inc. (Meta)
- Eric E Schmidt (USA), Former CEO and Chairman, Google LLC (2001-2011)
The Bilderberg Steering Committee
The current Bilderberg Steering Committee is co-chaired by Chairman Victor Halberstadt, Professor of Economics, Leiden University (NLD), and Canadian-born Marie-Josée Kravis, President, American Friends of Bilderberg Inc., Chair of The Museum of Modern Art. There are 32 members currently serving on the Bilderberg Steering Committee.
Victor Halberstadt/WEF
Halberstadt is a member of the World Economic Forum (WEF) and an advisor to the Goldman Sachs Group. He is also a member of the American Economic Association and the International Institute of Public Finance, where he was president from 1987 to 1990.
Marie-Josée Kravis
Kravis served as Vice-Chair of The Hudson Institute, USA, a think tank that "guides public policymakers and global leaders in government and business through a vigorous program of publications, conferences, policy briefings, and recommendations." She and her financier husband, Henry R. Kravis, are both listed on the WEF website and are noted art collectors.
The steering committee members are similar in composition to the meeting participants; investment bankers, pharmaceutical companies, world leaders, think tanks, the WEF, media companies, Big Tech companies, and energy corporations. Of note, Stacey Abrams, founder of Fair Fight Action, is listed as a member of the steering committee, and she was invited in 2019 to attend the meeting—the same year President Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner attended.
