2019

The 67th Bilderberg Meeting convened approximately 130 of the world’s most influential leaders in Montreux, Switzerland, to discuss a stable strategic order, the ethics of artificial intelligence, Brexit, and the weaponisation of social media. It would prove to be the last Bilderberg gathering before a three-year pandemic hiatus. This evidence-based analysis examines what actually happened at the world’s most scrutinized private conference.

Montreux hosted the 67th Bilderberg Meeting from May 30 to June 2, 2019, with approximately 130 participants from 23 countries at the Fairmont Le Montreux Palace hotel
Key topics included A Stable Strategic Order, the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence, Brexit, China, Russia, the Weaponisation of Social Media, and the Importance of Space
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo attended (confirmed by the State Department despite not appearing on the official list), alongside Jared Kushner, Ursula von der Leyen, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg
No official conclusions or resolutions were released, following the conference’s traditional Chatham House Rule approach
One month after the meeting, two attendees—Ursula von der Leyen and Charles Michel—were elevated to the EU’s two top jobs, and it was Henri de Castries’s final meeting as Steering Committee chairman

Introduction

From May 30 to June 2, 2019, approximately 130 of the world’s most influential figures gathered at the Fairmont Le Montreux Palace on the shores of Lake Geneva for the 67th Bilderberg Meeting. The Swiss lakeside resort—hosting the conference for the first time in French-speaking Switzerland—became, for four days, the most heavily guarded hotel in Europe, ringed by freshly planted hedges, private security, and a police operation drawing on the Swiss Air Force, federal police, and five cantonal forces.

Why does this matter? The 2019 gathering occurred at a moment of extraordinary geopolitical flux. The US-China trade war had just escalated dramatically with the blacklisting of Huawei, Theresa May had announced her resignation six days before the meeting, the European Parliament elections had shattered the traditional centrist majority, and tensions with Iran were spiraling toward open confrontation. Nobody in the room could know it, but Montreux would also be the final Bilderberg Meeting of the pre-pandemic world—the last time this network convened before COVID-19 forced the first cancellations in decades.

In this comprehensive analysis, you’ll learn:

The verified facts about the 2019 Montreux meeting, based solely on official sources and mainstream reporting
The historical context of 65 years of Bilderberg gatherings and Switzerland’s fifth turn as host nation
Who attended and what their participation reveals about the shifting power network—from Wall Street toward Silicon Valley
The 11 topics on the official agenda and their global significance
An evidence-based assessment separating documented facts from speculation—including the von der Leyen question

The Historical Context: 65 Years of Transatlantic Dialogue

Origins in Post-War Europe

The Bilderberg Meetings originated in 1954 at the Hotel de Bilderberg in Oosterbeek, Netherlands. Polish political adviser Józef Retinger and Dutch Prince Bernhard initiated the conference with a clear Cold War objective: strengthening transatlantic relations and addressing anti-American sentiment in Western Europe.

The 2019 meeting marked 65 years since that founding gathering. The conference has maintained its defining conventions throughout: the Chatham House Rule, allowing participants to use information received but not attribute statements to specific speakers; no detailed minutes; no resolutions; no votes; and no policy statements.

Switzerland’s Place in Bilderberg History

Montreux 2019 was the fifth Bilderberg meeting held on Swiss soil, following Bürgenstock in 1960, 1981, and 1995, and St. Moritz in 2011—but the first ever in the French-speaking part of the country. The Swiss connection ran through André Kudelski, chairman and CEO of the Kudelski Group and the only Swiss member of the Steering Committee, who acted as local organiser and proposed the Montreux venue.

Unusually, the location remained secret until days before the conference—a level of operational discretion described by longtime observers as unprecedented in modern times. The Swiss daily 24 heures finally broke the news of the venue in late May, and the town’s iconic Belle Époque palace hotel was promptly sealed behind newly planted hedges and a substantial security perimeter.

A World in Flux: The Weeks Before Montreux

Few Bilderberg meetings have convened amid such a dense cluster of breaking crises. On May 15-21, the Trump administration placed Huawei on the US Entity List, dramatically escalating the technology war with China. On May 23-26, the European Parliament elections delivered the highest turnout since 1994 and broke the combined majority of the two traditional centrist blocs. On May 24—six days before the meeting opened—Theresa May announced her resignation as British Prime Minister, throwing Brexit into fresh chaos. And throughout May, tanker sabotage in the Gulf and the collapse of the Iran nuclear deal framework pushed Washington and Tehran toward confrontation.

This context provides essential background for understanding how the steering committee shapes the conference agenda in response to world events.

The 2019 Montreux Meeting: Official Facts

Basic Details

According to the official press release, dated Montreux, May 28, 2019, about 130 participants from 23 countries confirmed their attendance at the 67th meeting—a diverse group of political leaders and experts from industry, finance, academia, labour, and the media. Roughly two-thirds came from Europe and the rest from North America; approximately a quarter came from politics and government. The published list named 129 individuals; independent tallies counted 39 business executives, 35 politicians, 15 editors and journalists, 13 academics, and 6 financiers, with about a quarter of participants being women.

The conference maintained its traditional closed-door format. The Vaud cantonal police coordinated between 100 and 370 personnel per day around the clock, supported by the Swiss Air Force, federal police, border guards, and the cantonal forces of Bern, Fribourg, Valais, and Geneva—not counting the substantial contingent of private security engaged by the organisers. Montreux’s mayor Laurent Wehrli assured residents they would “not pay a single centime,” with security covered by federal and cantonal authorities and lodging paid by the organisers. Protests remained small—around twenty people at most, by the police’s own account—and peaceful.

The 11 Official Agenda Topics

The published agenda addressed the most consequential challenges of the moment:

A Stable Strategic Order – Managing great-power rivalry and a fraying post-Cold War system
What Next for Europe? – The aftermath of fragmenting European Parliament elections
Climate Change and Sustainability – Rising political salience of the climate agenda
China – The trade war and the Huawei escalation
Russia – The continuing challenge to Western cohesion
The Future of Capitalism – Inequality and the backlash against globalization
Brexit – Discussed days after Theresa May’s resignation announcement
The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence – Governance of a transformative technology
The Weaponisation of Social Media – Disinformation and democratic vulnerability
The Importance of Space – The new strategic domain, as NATO prepared its first space policy
Cyber Threats – Security in the digital domain

Why These Topics Matter

Read together, the 2019 agenda reveals a distinctive pattern: nearly half the topics—strategic order, AI ethics, weaponised social media, space, and cyber threats—sat at the intersection of technology and security. Guardian journalist Charlie Skelton, the most persistent chronicler of the conference, summarized the overriding theme of Montreux as “the blurring of tech and war.”

The attendee list bore this out. Eric Schmidt, then chair of the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Board and the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, was joined by fellow Defense Innovation Board members Reid Hoffman and Adam Grant. Palantir CEO Alex Karp arrived just weeks after his company won a US Army intelligence contract worth up to $800 million—reportedly the first time a Silicon Valley software firm, rather than a traditional defense contractor, was tapped to lead a defense program of record. The directors of GCHQ and Danish Defence Intelligence, NATO’s StratCom chief, and the Pentagon’s directors of Net Assessment and space projects completed the picture.

“Brexit” and “What Next for Europe?” gained added urgency from the political calendar: the meeting opened four days after the European elections closed and six days after May’s resignation, with the contest to succeed her—and the selection of the EU’s new leadership—both wide open.

Who Attended: The 2019 Participant List

Political Leadership

The official participant list included sitting heads of government, ministers, royalty, and senior security officials:

Mike Pompeo – US Secretary of State (attended, though not on the published list; confirmed by the State Department)
Jared Kushner – Senior Advisor to the President, The White House
Ursula von der Leyen – German Federal Minister of Defence (nominated European Commission President one month later)
Mark Rutte – Prime Minister of the Netherlands
King Willem-Alexander – of the Netherlands
Jens Stoltenberg – NATO Secretary-General
Ueli Maurer – President of the Swiss Confederation and Finance Minister
Jüri Ratas – Prime Minister of Estonia
Bruno Le Maire – French Minister of Finance
Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer – Leader of Germany’s CDU
Henry A. Kissinger – Chairman, Kissinger Associates
David H. Petraeus – Chairman, KKR Global Institute; former CIA Director
Jeremy Fleming – Director, GCHQ (UK signals intelligence)
Matthew Pottinger – Senior Director, US National Security Council
Stacey Abrams – Founder and Chair, Fair Fight
Audrey Azoulay – Director-General, UNESCO

Technology and AI Sector

The tech contingent was unusually strong, foreshadowing the sector’s dominance at later meetings:

Satya Nadella – Microsoft CEO (his first Bilderberg appearance)
Eric Schmidt – Technical Advisor, Alphabet; former Google CEO; chair of the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Board
Peter Thiel – President, Thiel Capital; Steering Committee member
Alex Karp – Palantir Technologies CEO; Steering Committee member
Reid Hoffman – LinkedIn co-founder; Partner, Greylock Partners
Mustafa Suleyman – Co-Founder, DeepMind
Jared Cohen – Founder and CEO, Jigsaw (Alphabet)

Finance and Industry

Henry R. Kravis – Co-Chairman and Co-CEO, KKR
Mark Carney – Governor, Bank of England
Ana Botín – Group Executive Chair, Banco Santander
José Manuel Barroso – Chairman, Goldman Sachs International; former European Commission President
Tidjane Thiam – CEO, Credit Suisse Group
Mark Tucker – Group Chairman, HSBC
Thomas Buberl – CEO, AXA
Patrick Pouyanné – Chairman and CEO, Total
Patrice Caine – Chairman and CEO, Thales Group
Michael O’Leary – CEO, Ryanair
Marcus Wallenberg – Chairman, SEB
André Kudelski – Chairman and CEO, Kudelski Group (Swiss organiser of the meeting)
Robert E. Rubin – Former US Treasury Secretary; Co-Chairman Emeritus, Council on Foreign Relations

Media and Academia

Zanny Minton Beddoes – Editor-in-Chief, The Economist
John Micklethwait – Editor-in-Chief, Bloomberg
Martin Wolf – Chief Economics Commentator, Financial Times
David E. Sanger – National Security Correspondent, The New York Times
Mathias Döpfner – Chairman and CEO, Axel Springer
Niall Ferguson – Hoover Institution, Stanford
Nick Bostrom – Director, Future of Humanity Institute, Oxford
Timothy Snyder – Yale University
Johan Rockström – Director, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research
Minouche Shafik – Director, London School of Economics

What the Mix Reveals

The 2019 participant composition revealed three distinct patterns. First, the combined weight of Silicon Valley leadership and Pentagon-linked figures—Schmidt, Hoffman, and Grant of the Defense Innovation Board; Karp fresh off a landmark Army contract; the Pentagon’s Net Assessment and space directors; GCHQ’s chief—confirmed that the tech-defense nexus had become the conference’s gravitational center, years before it dominated the agendas of the 2020s.

Second, the presence of both wings of American politics—Trump administration principals (Pompeo, Kushner, Pottinger) alongside Democratic figures (Stacey Abrams, Claire McCaskill) and establishment veterans (Rubin, Kissinger, Petraeus)—reflected Bilderberg’s insistence on engaging whoever holds power, whatever the transatlantic establishment thinks of them.

Third, the European contingent was thick with figures about to ascend: von der Leyen to the European Commission, and a cohort of national politicians who would shape the EU’s next cycle. This network effect—bringing together people on upward trajectories before they arrive at the top—constitutes Bilderberg’s primary function, regardless of what conspiracy theories claim about the meetings.

The Pompeo and Kushner Factor

The most reported story of Montreux was the attendance of the US Secretary of State. Mike Pompeo did not appear on the published participant list; his presence was first reported by Swiss dailies and then confirmed by the State Department, which said he would attend briefly to make remarks and answer questions during a single session. His visit came amid a Europe tour dominated by Iran—Switzerland formally represents US interests in Tehran—and rumours of a side meeting on Iran with Swiss President Ueli Maurer circulated widely, though the Swiss Finance Ministry stated no such meeting was planned.

Jared Kushner, meanwhile, attended just weeks before unveiling the $50 billion economic component of the Trump administration’s Middle East plan at the Bahrain workshop of June 25-26, 2019. Whether he used Montreux to build support for the plan is plausible but unverifiable—an emblematic example of how Bilderberg’s structure permits informed speculation but no confirmation. The Guardian’s Charlie Skelton captured the weekend’s most vivid scene: Pompeo and Kushner joining the King of the Netherlands and NATO’s Stoltenberg on a steamboat cruise across Lake Geneva to a castle dinner, Pompeo arriving “in a motorcade so long it stretched halfway back to Geneva.”

Analysis: What We Can and Cannot Conclude

What We Know With Certainty

Based on official sources and verified reporting:

The meeting occurred on the stated dates at the Fairmont Le Montreux Palace with the published participant list of 129 names
Mike Pompeo attended despite not appearing on the list, as confirmed by the State Department
The 11 agenda topics were published in advance and reflect elite priorities of mid-2019
No formal decisions, resolutions, or policy statements were produced, and the Chatham House Rule was maintained
Henri de Castries chaired his final meeting as Steering Committee chairman; Victor Halberstadt and Marie-Josée Kravis subsequently took over as co-chairs

Probable Indirect Influences

While causation cannot be proven, circumstantial patterns suggest informal coordination:

The “What Next for Europe?” discussions occurred exactly one month before the European Council’s dramatic leadership negotiations of July 2, 2019—at which two Montreux attendees, Ursula von der Leyen and Charles Michel, emerged with the EU’s two top jobs. Having many of Europe’s key political players in one room during the post-election horse-trading period plausibly contributed to the informal sounding-out that precedes any such appointment, even though the nomination itself resulted from public, well-documented EU negotiations after the leading Spitzenkandidat options were blocked.

The heavy overlap between Bilderberg’s tech contingent and the Pentagon’s advisory apparatus—three Defense Innovation Board members in the room, plus Palantir’s CEO weeks after a landmark defense contract—almost certainly involved exchanges relevant to the integration of Silicon Valley into US and allied defense planning. Whether these conversations shaped subsequent contracts is unverifiable, but the institutional channels visibly existed.

What Remains Speculation

Despite intense commentary, no verified leaks emerged from Montreux. Claims that Bilderberg “chose” von der Leyen as Commission President, that Pompeo negotiated Iran policy at the hotel, or that the meeting coordinated 5G strategy against Huawei lack any documentary evidence. The correlation between attending Bilderberg and subsequently rising to high office is real—von der Leyen, Michel, and many predecessors illustrate it—but the more mundane explanation holds: Bilderberg invites people already on upward trajectories. The meetings’ influence operates through informal consensus-building rather than directive decision-making.

The Last Meeting of an Era

In retrospect, Montreux carries a significance nobody present could have anticipated. Within nine months, the COVID-19 pandemic forced the cancellation of the 2020 meeting, and 2021 followed. Not since the 1976 Lockheed scandal had a Bilderberg year passed without a conference; now three would. When the group reconvened in Washington, D.C. in June 2022, the world it discussed—pandemic-reshaped, war returned to Europe—was profoundly different from the one debated on the shores of Lake Geneva. Montreux thus stands as the closing chapter of Bilderberg’s post-Cold War period.

The Legacy of Founding Figures

Understanding Bilderberg’s evolution requires acknowledging its architects. Key founding figures like David Rockefeller shaped the conference’s structure and philosophy, establishing traditions that persist more than six decades later.

Montreux 2019 also marked a generational handover within the organization itself. Henri de Castries, chairman of the Steering Committee since 2012, presided over his final meeting, closing it with a brief statement calling the Montreux edition “a great success.” The transition to co-chairs Victor Halberstadt and Marie-Josée Kravis—alongside the growing weight of Steering Committee members from technology (Schmidt, Thiel, Karp)—signalled the shift Charlie Skelton described as power moving “from Wall Street to Silicon Valley.”

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Where and when was Bilderberg 2019 held?

A: The 67th Bilderberg Meeting was held from May 30 to June 2, 2019, at the Fairmont Le Montreux Palace hotel in Montreux, Switzerland. It was the fifth Swiss-hosted meeting in Bilderberg history and the first in the French-speaking part of the country.

Q: How many people attended?

A: The official announcement cited about 130 participants from 23 countries; the published list named 129 individuals. At least one additional attendee—US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo—did not appear on the list, so the true figure was slightly higher.

Q: Did Mike Pompeo really attend a secret meeting?

A: Yes—and it was officially acknowledged. The State Department confirmed Pompeo attended briefly to make remarks and take questions in one session, although the event did not appear on his public schedule. The discussions themselves remain private under the Chatham House Rule.

Q: Did Bilderberg make Ursula von der Leyen President of the European Commission?

A: No evidence supports this claim. Von der Leyen attended Montreux as German Defence Minister and was nominated Commission President on July 2, 2019—one month later—through well-documented European Council negotiations after the lead-candidate options collapsed. Her extensive international network, built at forums including Bilderberg, Davos, and Munich, certainly aided her rise, but correlation is not causation.

Q: Are the Bilderberg Meetings really secret?

A: The discussions are private, not secret. The participant list and topic agenda are published on the official website. No decisions are made, and participants can use information gained but cannot attribute statements. This differs from truly secret gatherings that deny their existence—though the 2019 venue was kept unusually quiet until days before the event.

Q: What was different about the 2019 agenda?

A: The technology-security nexus dominated. Five of the eleven topics—strategic order, AI ethics, weaponised social media, space, and cyber threats—addressed the fusion of technology and geopolitics, matched by an attendee list packed with tech CEOs, Pentagon advisers, and intelligence chiefs. Montreux previewed the defense-tech convergence that would define Bilderberg agendas in the 2020s.

Q: Why was 2019 the last meeting for three years?

A: The COVID-19 pandemic forced the cancellation of the 2020 and 2021 meetings—the first interruptions since 1976, when the conference was cancelled amid the Lockheed bribery scandal involving co-founder Prince Bernhard. The conference resumed in Washington, D.C., in June 2022.

Key Takeaways

Documented Facts: The 2019 Montreux meeting occurred May 30 – June 2 with approximately 130 participants from 23 countries discussing 11 published agenda topics, all verifiable through official sources.
Tech-War Convergence: Nearly half the agenda—and the most notable attendees—sat at the intersection of Silicon Valley and the defense establishment, foreshadowing the defense-tech dominance of later meetings.
Government at the Table: The US Secretary of State’s confirmed attendance, alongside the President’s senior adviser, marked one of the highest-level official US presences in modern Bilderberg history.
The European Ascensions: Two attendees—von der Leyen and Michel—took the EU’s top two jobs within weeks, illustrating Bilderberg’s pattern of hosting leaders on the cusp of power without evidence that the meeting itself decided anything.
Leadership Transition: Montreux was Henri de Castries’s final meeting as chairman, ushering in the Halberstadt-Kravis co-chairmanship.
End of an Era: Montreux was the last Bilderberg Meeting before the pandemic hiatus of 2020-2021, making it the closing conference of the pre-COVID world order.
No Evidence of Direct Control: Despite decades of scrutiny, no verified evidence supports claims that Bilderberg meetings directly determine policy. Influence operates through informal consensus-building and networking rather than directive decision-making.

Conclusion: Montreux in Context

The 2019 Montreux meeting captured a world order in transition without knowing that a far greater rupture was months away. Its agenda—strategic instability, the ethics of AI, weaponised information, the contest with China—reads today as a preview of the decade that followed, while its guest list documented the moment Silicon Valley formally joined the transatlantic security establishment at the highest table.

Its significance should neither be exaggerated into omnipotent conspiracy nor dismissed as irrelevant networking. The truth lies between: influential people discussing important topics in private likely generates some degree of informal coordination, but actual policy emerges through legitimate institutional processes—as the very public, very messy EU leadership negotiations of July 2019 demonstrated.

As the final gathering before the pandemic changed everything, Montreux stands as a historical marker: the last photograph, so to speak, of the pre-COVID transatlantic elite—neither more nor less transparent than the 66 meetings that preceded it.

Sources

Official Press Release and Participant List 2019: bilderbergmeetings.org (May 28, 2019)
Public Intelligence: “2019 Bilderberg Meeting Participant List”
The Guardian: Charlie Skelton, “Bilderberg Ahoy! Pompeo and Kushner join the billionaire boat club” (June 2, 2019)
Newsweek: Charlie Skelton, “Silicon Valley in Switzerland: Bilderberg 2019 and the High-Tech Future of Transatlantic Power” (June 1, 2019)
The New York Times / The Washington Post: Reporting on Pompeo’s confirmed attendance (June 2019)
Swiss media: 24 heures, RTS, SwissInfo, The Local Switzerland — venue, security, and protest coverage (May-June 2019)
Police cantonale vaudoise: Closing statement on the security operation (June 2019)
CNBC: “Kushner, Google and Microsoft to attend secret Bilderberg Meeting” (May 28, 2019)
Politico Europe: “The Network that Ursula Built” (July 11, 2019)
European Parliament: Final turnout data, 2019 European elections (October 29, 2019)