Vivek Ramaswamy settles lawsuit with World Economic Forum, will donate money

Ramswamy filed the lawsuit in an Ohio court in April

Vivek Ramaswamy settles lawsuit with World Economic Forum, will donate money to anti-globalist non-profit

GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has settled his lawsuit against the World Economic Forum for "creating a false perception" he was affiliated with the group, and has promised to donate the settlement money to an anti-globalist non-profit.

EXCLUSIVE: Republican presidential candidate and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy has settled his lawsuit against the "globalist" World Economic Forum (WEF) for "creating a false perception" he was affiliated with the organization, and has promised to donate the settlement money to a conservative nonprofit.

Ramaswamy slapped the organization with a lawsuit in a Cincinnati, Ohio court in April after it failed to remove his name from its 2021 list of Young Global Leaders even though he declined the nomination to the list and requested multiple times for them to remove his name.

In a letter Ramaswamy shared with Fox News Digital, the WEF apologized for its mistake of including him on the list without his permission, and noted internal changes it made to its process to ensure no such failure would happen in the future.

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vivek ramaswamy settles lawsuit with world economic forum will donate money

Vivek Ramaswamy speaks at the Republican Party of Iowa's annual Lincoln Dinner in Des Moines on Friday, July 28, 2023. (Rachel Mummey/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Ramaswamy reacted to the settlement in a video message also shared with Fox by touting what he said was his history of being one of the most vocal advocates of U.S. sovereignty, as well as his opposition to "globalist institutions" like the WEF.

"I rejected their award. I declined it. I said that I deeply disagreed with the values of the World Economic Forum and that I wouldn't be a good fit for inclusion," Ramaswamy said in the video. "A few months later, I was told that my name showed up on their website anyway. I contacted them. I told them to take it down. They had the gall to still leave my name." 

"I wasn't going to let them get away with that. And so what I did is I said that I'm going to stand up for what's right," he said. "I wanted to demand that they would not only take down my affiliation with them and apologize for it, but also to make sure and commit that they would never try to do the same thing to anybody again."

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vivek ramaswamy settles lawsuit with world economic forum will donate money

The World Economic Forum's logo in Switzerland (Reuters/Arnd Wiegmann)

Ramaswamy then vowed to distribute the undisclosed amount from the settlement to the America First Policy Institute, a nonprofit research group that "exists to advance policies that put the American people first," according to its website. Ramaswamy described the institute as "the most opposite of the World Economic Forum's agenda."

"I'm directing any payment I receive from this settlement straight to them, because this isn't about me. This is about this country and our future. And what we really need today is more leaders with a spine," he said. 

"We will stop at nothing until we have restored the sovereignty of the United States of America and the ideals – the 1776 ideals of the American Revolution – that set this nation into motion," he added.

vivek ramaswamy settles lawsuit with world economic forum will donate money

Vivek Ramaswamy speaks during a SiriusXM Town Hall Meeting on June 20, 2023, in Philadelphia. (Lisa Lake/Getty Images for SiriusXM)

The WEF did not respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment.

Brandon Gillespie is an associate editor at Fox News. Follow him on Twitter at @brandon_cg.

Authored by Brandon Gillespie via FoxNews July 31st 2023