Closing Bell: Tesla Rises, Gemini's Big Debut, Drugmakers Fall

On this episode of Stock Movers:

Listen for comprehensive cross-platform coverage of the US market close as heard on Bloomberg Television, Bloomberg Radio, and YouTube with Romaine Bostick, Katie Greifeld, Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec.

• Tesla (TSLA) shares rallied today on word that its chair insists no one other than Elon Musk is capable of leading the company’s transition into artificial intelligence and robotics — but it’s possible he won’t do it from the CEO’s seat. “He is a generational leader,” Robyn Denholm said Friday on Bloomberg TV. “There aren’t any other people out there like Elon who can actually lead the company over the next decade or so.” The longtime board member offered the emphatic endorsement of Musk as part of a wide-ranging interview spelling out Tesla’s succession-planning process and detailing a massive proposed compensation package for the chief executive officer. Denholm also acknowledged the possibility of Musk moving into another leadership post such as chief product officer, saying that is “contemplated” in the pay plan.
• Gemini (GEMI) shares ended 14% above their IPO price, after the cryptocurrency exchange led by the billionaire Winklevoss twins raised $425 million in a packed week for US listings. Shares of the New York-based exchange and custodian closed at $32 each on Friday, above the $28 per share IPO price, after a volatile session that saw the stock halted twice. The company had previously told investors it expected to cap the base size of its IPO at $425 million and to potentially sell fewer shares than it first proposed, Bloomberg News reported earlier. The trading gives Gemini a market value of more than $3.5 billion based on the outstanding shares listed in its filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. It raised funds in 2021 at a $7.1 billion valuation.
• Drugmakers like Moderna (MRNA) fell across the board after a report that Trump health officials plan to link Covid shots to the deaths of around two dozen children in a presentation to advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention next week. The Washington Post reported Friday that a group of health officials appear to have used the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, or VAERS, to tie the deaths of 25 children to Covid vaccines. A high-profile advisory committee that Kennedy revamped to include vaccine critics is scheduled to discuss the shots from companies including Pfizer Inc., Moderna Inc. and BioNTech SE at its meeting next week. Moderna shares dropped 7.4% in New York Friday. Pfizer shares fell 4%, while BioNTech’s US-traded shares sank 7.3%.

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