Has the CEO of Moderna "just walked away from the company"? No, that's not true: At the time of writing, Stéphane Bancel was still listed as the CEO on the Moderna website. There have been no articles by reputable media outlets saying Bancel has stepped down from his position.
The claim appeared in screenshotted tweets on an Instagram post on July 18, 2022. The tweet reads:
The federal government gave Moderna $2.5 billion to develop a COVID-19 vaccine. Meanwhile, Moderna's CEO just walked away from the company with a $926 million golden parachute.
This is what oligarchy looks like.
This is what the Facebook post looked like at the time of writing:
(Source: Instagram screenshot taken on Tue Jul 26 15:19:46 2022 UTC)
This fact check focuses only on the part of the post stating that "Moderna's CEO just walked away from the company ..."
At the time of writing, Bancel is still listed as the current chief executive officer on the Moderna website. He has held this role since October 2011.
(Modernatx.com screenshot taken on Tue Jul 26 10:46:23 2022 UTC)
There have also been no reports of the CEO of Moderna stepping down from his position from any reputable media outlets. The New York Times and The Washington Post have not reported on this at the time of writing.
Despite Lead Stories' repeated efforts to get a response from Moderna concerning Bancel's position, we have not received one as of this writing. We will update this article if we do receive a response from Moderna.
