False claims the Rothschild family owns central banks resurface online

"In the year 2000 there were nine countries without a Rothschild owned or controlled Central Bank," says a December 14, 2024 X post.

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Screenshot of an X post taken December 30, 2024

According to this image, Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, Libya, Cuba, North Korea, Iran, Syria, and Venezuela were the only countries without a central bank controlled by the family's well-known financial and banking groups that year.

The claim appeared elsewhere on X, Facebook and Instagram. Similar posts also circulated in French, with varying numbers of countries and dates.

The Rothschilds, a Jewish family involved in banking for centuries, are frequently at the center of conspiracy theories, according to the Anti-Defamation League (archived here).

AFP has previously debunked claims that the Rothschilds and other wealthy individuals own the Federal Reserve (the US central bank) and posts suggesting the family owned the Bank of France. The latest claim to gain traction online is similarly false.

Rothschild banking groups, Rothschild & Co (archived here) and Edmond de Rothschild (archived here) manage private financial institutions, not central banks.

Most of the world's central banks are state-owned, with a handful having some private investors, according to an October 2019 blog post from the Bank of England (archived here).

The European Central Bank (archived here), defines a central bank as a "public institution," entrusted with various roles, including controlling the money supply -- with its primary objective to maintain "price stability."

The European Central Bank's owners are the central banks of all the countries in the European Union (archived here). It does not have any private owners.

Additionally, the posts exaggerate the Rothschild groups' presence. Both official websites list which parts of the world they are based in (archived here and here). According to AFP's count, their offices are present in some 40 countries and therefore absent from numerous others.

A representative at the Rothschild & Co group confirmed on December 19, 2024, that it had a "global presence" in "49 countries" and through "69 offices."

This is a far cry from a worldwide presence, given that the United Nations Organization has 193 member states (archived here). 

A spokesperson for the Edmond de Rothschild group added on December 19, 2024, that the group has a "majority presence in Europe," notably in Switzerland, France, Luxembourg, Monaco, Belgium and Italy.

AFP found no mention of central bank investments on the websites of Rothschild & Co. or Edmond de Rothschild -- both of which specialize in private banking, asset management and corporate finance.

Interviewed in March 2024 by the BBC (archived link) about the persistence of conspiracy theories surrounding this name, Mike Rothschild, an American journalist specializing in covering conspiracy theories (archived link) -- with no connection to the Rothschild family --- said: "the Rothschilds continue to attract so much interest because they remain one of the most well-known Jewish families in the West."

"Conspiracy theories usually contain some kind of anti-Semitic element, particularly elements about who controls the conspiracy and who finances it," he said.

AFP has also fact-checked other rumors about the family, including claims that the Rothschild family owns major global news organizations.