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You might remember that Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel was recently pushing for another COVID-19 booster shot only weeks ago.
Now it appears he’s running for the hills.
Social media is buzzing with rumors that Bancel has deleted his personal Twitter and dumped a ton of his stock held in the company he leads. It turns out that much of this is true.
According to numerous reports, his Twitter account “@sbancel” has been deleted. In the past, Moderna’s official would often tag its CEO. This account no longer exists.
When visiting the account at twitter.com/sbancel, a message is returned that reads, “This account doesn’t exist.”
Bancel was previously active on Twitter. He had 4,377 tweets, 6,396 followers, and was following 16 people at the time. A tweet from Moderna was pinned at the top.
Congratulations to our CEO, @sbancel, for being awarded the Strategist Prize 2020 by @LesEchos for leading Moderna's #COVID19 vaccine strategy, deemed as the most relevant industrial strategy of the past year. pic.twitter.com/g4iNh5SQwM
— Moderna (@moderna_tx) November 15, 2021
Historical screenshots of web history also prove the account was once active:
Records show that Bancel has not sold all Moderna stock as some rumors claim.
However, he clearly has been dumping some of the stock, which is triggering many questions and concerns.
Bancel sold 19,000 shares for a little under $3 million on February 9. He sold 19,000 shares for a little over $3 million on February 2.
He sold blocks of shares periodically since November 2019.
He still owns more than seven million shares in Moderna as of February 9 and has not dumped all his stocks. The source that WallMine listed for its latest update from February 9 is an SEC form.
Yahoo Finance also has a record of Bancel’s Moderna stock sales. Insider Screener also shares transaction updates.
You guys are bad at math. He’s selling 19,000 shares per week, at which rate he’d sell about a million shares per year. That’s <5% of what he owns, not accounting for whatever new options he is granted this year as part of his pay package.
— Dale Gamble (@GambleDale) February 12, 2022
