Pfizer CEO was fully vaccinated in March

CLAIM: The CEO of Pfizer had to cancel a planned trip to Israel because he was not fully vaccinated.

AP’S ASSESSMENT: Missing context. The Aug. 5 post making this claim lacks the critical context that the trip was canceled in early March, before many people had been vaccinated. Albert Bourla, the chairman and CEO of Pfizer, announced on Twitter that he received his second dose of the vaccine on March 10.

THE FACTS: A screenshot of a tweet shared widely on Instagram on Thursday implies the CEO of the pharmaceutical company Pfizer has neglected for months to take his own company’s COVID-19 vaccine.

“The CEO of Pfizer had to cancel a planned trip to Israel because he was not fully vaccinated,” read the Aug. 5 tweet from Newsmax White House Correspondent Emerald Robinson. “Let me repeat: BECAUSE HE WAS NOT VACCINATED.”

However, the trip to Israel that Bourla had to cancel was in early March, according to news reports at the time.

Bourla announced in December that, at 59 years old, he would wait his turn to receive the vaccine after frontline workers and seniors had a chance. He received the second shot of his two-dose vaccine on March 10, according to his Twitter account.

Robinson acknowledged this in a later tweet, saying, “Update: The CEO of Pfizer announced on social media that he got his second vaccination shot on March 10.”

Pfizer didn’t immediately respond to an inquiry about why Bourla canceled his March trip. Bourla’s visit was set to begin 15 days before Israel’s March 23 national election and had been criticized as potentially influencing the results in favor of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

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This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.