Tech billionaires Eric Schmidt, Peter Thiel and Reid Hoffman have been pictured at the secretive Bilderberg conference in Switzerland today.

Former Google CEO Schmidt, 64, PayPal co-founder Thiel, 51, and LinkedIn co-founder Hoffman, also 51, are among more than a hundred high-powered guests at the summit in the five-star Fairmont Le Montreux Palace on the shores of Lake Geneva.

Also pictured arriving for talks were King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands, RyanAir boss Michael O'Leary and Marie-Josée Kravis who sits on the board of luxury goods conglomerate LMVH, which includes Louis Vuitton and Moët & Chandon.

Tech billionaire Eric Schmidt, the former Google CEO director, was pictured at the secretive Bilderberg conference in Switzerland today

PayPal co-founder Thiel, 51, is also among more than a hundred high-powered guests at the summit in Montreux. He is pictured outside the venue today

LinkedIn co-founder Hoffman (pictured emerging from a car today), 51, is also among guests at the secretive talks. After the sale of LinkedIn to Microsoft, Reid Hoffman enjoyed a huge windfall before joining the Microsoft board of directors

Also pictured arriving for talks were King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands (in the pink shirt)

Flying visit: RyanAir boss Michael O'Leary (pictured arriving in sunglasses today) has been invited to the meetings on a number of occasions in the past

Schmidt also chairs the Pentagon’s new National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence and is attending this year's Bilderberg summit with former State Department strategist Jared Cohen.

Back in 2010 Schmidt appointed Cohen to run an internal tech think-tank at Google called ’Google Ideas’, later renamed Jigsaw.

In 2013 they wrote a book together called The New Digital Age, in which they mapped out their vision of a "brave new world" of technology.

Heavyweight Brits in attendance at the elite talks also include the director of GCHQ Jeremy Fleming, and chairman of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, Tom Tugendhat MP.

Mail Online reached out to Mr Tugendhat to clarify if he was attending the elite talks in a private or public capacity, and who would be covering his travel expenses to and from the talks.

He responded: 'I attend many conferences in both an official and personal capacity,' but did not elaborate further.

Previous visits to the meeting by British MPs such as Amber Rudd in 2018, and George Osborne as Chancellor of the Exchequer in 2011 and 2014 took place in an official capacity, and transport costs were funded by the UK taxpayer.

Turkish billionaire Ömer Koç, the chairman of Turkey's largest industrial holding company, goes for stroll in sunny Montreux, flanked by two bodyguards

The boss of controversial tech company Palantir, Alex Karp, arrives at Bilderberg with his yoga mat and a crate of German beer. Karp is on the Bilderberg steering committee, and the board of the Economist Group

Jeremy Fleming, director of GCHQ, pictured with travel companion Bulgarian Ivan Krastev, chairman of the Centre for Liberal Strategies

Toting a soft leather satchel, the billionaire CEO of Microsoft, Satya Nadella, arrives at his first Bilderberg meeting

Lars Findsen, head of the DDIS, the Danish Defence Intelligence Service, carries his dinner jacket and a kit bag as he enters the Fairmont Montreaux Palace hotel ahead of the meeting

Head of French arms company Thales, Patrice Caine, is given a warm welcome to the Montreux Palace Hotel. The stylish Monsieur Caine is also a director of global beauty brand L’Oréal

Bilderberg group steering committee member Mathias Döpfner, CEO of German media giant Axel Springer, and board member of Netflix and Warner music relaxes outside the hotel before the meeting

The President of the Swiss Federation, Ueli Maurer, arrives for the three day talks in Montreaux by the banks of Lake Geneva

The head of Davos, former Norwegian foreign minister, Børge Brende, the newest member of Bilderberg's steering committee, drove his own Audi to the conference, where he'll be discussing 'Climate Change and Sustainability'

Bård Vegar Solhjell, the CEO of the World Wildlife Fund, heads out for a jog before the elite talks sporting a red running top with grey detailing

They join 130 influential men and women from 23 countries who are gathering for a heavily guarded meeting under strict secrecy rules. Bankers, Prime Ministers, CEOs and defence experts are discussing a wide range of topics including Russia, cyber threats and Brexit.

The public outside the hotel are kept at a distance by police barriers, and gaps in the security screen where cameras might be pointed are hastily covered.

As an indicator of the secrecy surrounding the event, reporters have complained of harassment by the Swiss police.

Josh Friedman, of Cal Coast News, said he had been detained three times so far. He and others were kept in a detention cell yesterday at Geneva airport while they took pictures of the Bilderberg delegates arriving.

What will the Bilderberg Group discuss? The key topics for discussion this year are: 1. A Stable Strategic Order 2. What Next for Europe? 3. Climate Change and Sustainability 4. China 5. Russia 6. The Future of Capitalism 7. Brexit 8. The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence 9. The Weaponisation of Social Media 10. The Importance of Space 11. Cyber Threats The Bilderberg Group claim that their summits take place without agenda and discussions of topics are informal. The secretive group claim that no policies are made, no votes are taken and no statements are issued. Advertisement

'I was outside the airport on public ground, and the police pounced on me, held me down, searched my bag and ripped my phone out of my hand. I was then held on my own in a cell before I was put in a room with other journalists and kept there for some time before being released.'

Participants have been arriving throughout Thursday and today.

Donald Trump's son-in-law and trusted lieutenant, Jared Kushner, will be flying into the elite confab from the Middle East, and there are strong rumours that the US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, who is currently in Europe, will join the proceedings alongside him.

It is thought that they will be arriving on Saturday for the group's lavish banquet and keynote speech which was given last year by Jens Stoltenberg, secretary general of NATO at the Fiat headquarters in Turin, Italy.

Trump has also sent two members of the National Security Council, Matthew Turpin, Director of China and Matthew Pottinger.

As usual, the former US Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger who has recently turned 96 will be in attendance.

The Bilderberg meeting brings together many former senior politicians and diplomats who like Kissinger, director of Kissinger Associates, have jumped headlong into the private sector after leaving office.

Anti-Brexit Labour peer Lord Andrew Adonis is pictured on the phone as he goes for a stroll in the grounds of the Montreux Palace Hotel

Marie-Josée Kravis (pictured arriving at the Bilderberg meeting today) sits on the board of luxury goods conglomerate LMVH and is on the international advisory board of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. She is the second wife of the Wall Street billionaire, Henry Kravis

The head of Banco Santander and director of Coca-Cola, the influential businesswoman Ana Botín heads out for a pre-Bilderberg stroll

David Petraeus, the former director of the CIA and now a Wall Street financier at KKR, is pictured outside the venue today

Heavy security: Swiss police guard the entrance of the Fairmont Le Montreux Palace hotel where this year's Bilderberg conference is takes place

The public outside the hotel are kept at a distance by police barriers, and gaps in the security screen where cameras might be pointed are hastily covered

The former head of MI6, Sir John Sawers, now sits on the board of oil giant BP.

Fellow spy boss David Petraeus, the former director of the CIA, is now a Wall Street financier at KKR.

And the former president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, is now the chairman of London-based high finance company Goldman Sachs International.

Both Sawers and Barroso, alongside Ryan Air boss Michael O' Leary, sit on the steering committee of Bilderberg, which is chaired by Henri de Castries, the vice President of Nestle and director of HSBC.

For the last decade, Bilderberg has embraced big tech and welcomed Silicon Valley billionaires into its inner circle.

The group's steering committee, which organises the conference, includes the former CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt, who chairs the Pentagon's Defense Innovation Board, and Facebook director Peter Thiel, who is a trusted advisor of Donald Trump.

This year the CEO of Microsoft, Satya Nadella, is attending the summit, along with a host of senior AI investors and experts. These include the British entrepreneur Mustafa Suleyman, who co-founded DeepMind, an artificial intelligence company that was bought by Google in 2014.

Google chief Jared Cohen, who heads the Jigsaw subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., is also said to be in attendance.

The King of the Netherlands, Willem-Alexander, arrived with Mark Rutte the Dutch Prime Minister on Thursday.

Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of England, is a repeat visitor to Bilderberg. This year he is said to be discussing 'The Future of Capitalism' with the heads of HSBC, Banco Santander, and Goldman Sachs International

Ireland's Finance Minister, Paschal Donohoe, is also among the guests, returning to Bilderberg for the second year in a row

A doorman at the Fairmont Montreux Palace Hotel keeps the welcome mat immaculate for the distinguished guests

Tory MP Tom Tugendhat, the chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, arrives at Bilderberg with his kit bag, ready to take part in the secretive top level talks

His father Prince Bernard of the Netherlands established the conference in 1954, and a member of the Dutch royal family is usually in attendance at the meeting.

The Dutch royal family also have close links with Royal Dutch Shell and the CFO and of the company Jessica Uhl will be meeting with them over the three days at the conference which brings together a variety of corporate, banking and political heavyweights.

Also present at the meeting is the leading figure in the People's Vote campaign, Labour peer Lord Adonis who is thought to be taking part in the 'Brexit' discussion scheduled during the three days of talks. Lord Adonis recently lost his bid to become an MEP for the South West region in the recent elections on May 23rd.

According to the Bilderberg Group, their discussions will be 'informal' and without specific agenda, besides their publicised list of broad talking points.

They do not vote, they do not set policy and they do not release statements, the group claim.

How America and Europe's 'leading citizens' gather for a summit so clandestine, no minutes are taken The Bilderberg Group — so called because it first met in 1954 at the Hotel Bilderberg in the Netherlands — is made up of at least 120 self-proclaimed 'leading citizens' of Europe and the U.S., who meet annually to discuss 'issues of common interest'. So clandestine are the gatherings that no minutes are taken, no press conferences given and no reports published. The conference operates under 'Chatham House Rules', which means participants can use and report information exchanged there, but not disclose the source. The luxurious jet-set city of Montreux on the banks of Lake Geneva is the site of this year's Bilderberg summit But with no record of what goes on, critics have said it should be much more transparent. Many argue that the event exists solely to serve as a networking and lobbying opportunity for its attendees. Every summer, figureheads from politics, business, academia, finance and defence lock themselves away in a closely guarded hotel for three days to discuss topics of vital global significance. Hypothesis and conjecture about the content of their talks inevitably abound. The roll-call of attendees is invariably auspicious. Prime ministers, royalty — Prince Charles and Prince Philip have both attended — army generals, corporate CEOs and bank governors all make time in their busy schedules to be there. Advertisement

In addition, they hold talks under Chatham House rules - members can use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of a speaker nor any other participant may be revealed.

News outlets are not invited to the event, though there are journalists attending, including Economist editor Zanny Minton Beddoes and Bloomberg editor John Micklethwait.

The meeting attracts protesters and many conspiracy theorists have ideas about how the Bilderberg Group control the world.

In recent annual meetings security has soared to tens of millions in ensuring the safety of the dignitaries.

Some have made wild claims that the group serves as a front for the Illuminati, a secret and sinister order founded in 18th century Bavaria.

In 2018, the Daily Mail were able to embed an investigative reporter as a waitress at the unassuming four-star hotel in Turin, northern Italy, for their conference.

Security was tight around the perimeter with military police and sniffer dogs checking for explosives, while powerful attendees quaffed champagne and ate canapes.

The 'waitress' was told not to engage with guests and to 'look down.'

But she was able to glean the guests were provided yellow paper 'score cards' on which they must give TripAdvisor-style self-evaluation assessments of talks.

On each form delegates must rate discussions on a scale of one to five including 'importance of topic', 'quality of panellist', 'interaction' and so on.

Journalist Jon Ronson wrote a book about the Bilderberg Group, called Them, and the late Labour MP Denis Healey, who co-founded the group, told him: 'Bilderberg is the most useful international group I ever attended. The confidentiality enabled people to speak honestly without fear of repercussions.'

Ever since its formation in 1954 - at the Hotel Bilderberg in the Netherlands - the talks have been shrouded in mystery because no minutes are kept of what was discussed.

Prince Bernhard, of the Netherlands, who co-founded the group said it was so 'that severe economic dips like the Great Depressions could be avoided if responsible and influential leaders could manage world events behind their necessary public posturing'.

The idea was for a big talking shop attended by the great and the good where the mistakes of the past could be learned and the problems of the future avoided.