Bill Ackman amplifies RFK Jr on Covid vaccines

Bill Ackman said in 2021 that delaying Covid vaccinations for older Americans “looks as if genocide.”

Today, the influential hedge fund chief and investor is amplifying the debunked anti-vaccine views of Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Ackman will not be denying his change. The truth is, he said Kennedy is asking “necessary questions” about vaccines, raising issues he’s all in favour of learning more about.

Several of Ackman’s recent tweets about Covid vaccines have stunned and confounded a lot of his colleagues on Wall Street, based on several individuals who have known and been allied with him for years. And it’s led each his allies and foes to ask the identical query: Why is he doing this?

Ackman answered that query in an interview with CNBC on Wednesday.

“I listened to RFK on several podcasts and a town hall and thought he raised necessary issues about vaccines and other issues that were value learning more about,” said Ackman, the CEO of Pershing Square Capital. “I do not feel like we have fully answered questions on the protection of all vaccines, particularly more recently approved vaccines, and our approach to determining their safety and efficacy.” 

Although the effectiveness of the Covid vaccines has declined over time because the virus has evolved into recent variants, public health officials say the shots are a critical tool in stopping hospitalization and death from the virus, particularly among the many elderly and folks with pre-existing medical conditions. Serious unwanted effects are rare. The CDC and FDA closely watch vaccine safety though large monitoring systems, and often discuss any issues at public advisory committee meetings.

Ackman, a billionaire whose commentary can move markets, is the most recent high profile executive to indicate support for Kennedy and his opinions. 

Wall Street veteran Omeed Malik is hosting a campaign fundraiser for Kennedy later this month within the Hamptons. Enterprise capitalist David Sacks and fellow tech leader Chamath Palihapitiya hosted a fundraiser for Kennedy in June, which raised roughly $500,000 for Kennedy’s campaign. Ackman wouldn’t say whether he planned to donate to Kennedy’s campaign for president.

Ackman’s recent stance on vaccines marks a dramatic shift for the investor. In 2021, he said the U.S. should “launch mass vaccinations” of the elderly. He reaped large profits through the peak of the Covid pandemic, by selling his bets against the market, just days after warning on CNBC that “hell is coming” and imploring the Trump White House to shut down the country for a month. Ackman, in a March 26 letter to investors, called the concept his comments moved the market “absurd.” “Starting on March twelfth, we began unwinding our hedge, and continued to achieve this on daily basis thereafter until we accomplished our exit on the morning of March twenty third,” he wrote.

Ackman told CNBC his newfound worries about vaccines come from being a parent and a concerned citizen. He said Kennedy, in his view, is asking “necessary questions” about them. “Unfortunately, vaccines should not safety tested,” Kennedy said at a town hall late last month.

Scientific researchers and medical officials have emphatically rejected Kennedy’s stances on vaccines, including his earlier argument that vaccines can result in autism.

Ackman has pushed his newfound skepticism to his roughly 740,000 followers while saying he will not be against vaccines. He has also taken on a physician who is understood for pushing back on misinformation related to Covid.

“@RobertKennedyJr and others have raised necessary questions on the protection of some vaccines and have sought explanations for the dramatic increases within the incidence of childhood allergies, autism, and other health issues. These are good questions which have not been adequately answered,” Ackman said in a tweet last month that quoted a video of former Fox News host Tucker Carlson arguing that Kennedy is getting the higher of President Joe Biden within the early days of the Democratic primary campaign.

Biden enjoys a considerable lead in Democratic primary polls, although Kennedy is pulling double-digit support.

When asked if he believes whether Kennedy ought to be president, Ackman said: “I do not yet know, but I believe he’s asking necessary questions and raising interesting issues which are worthy of debate and debate.”

Ackman, who has backed Democrats up to now, also would not say whether he’ll back Biden.

“It is dependent upon the alternatives on the time of the final election,” Ackman said. “My strong preference is that he pronounces now that he won’t run to create a more open field for other candidates.”

Some say Ackman may very well be positioning himself to have more influence in politics, including possibly running for office sooner or later. Ackman said in a recent tweet that he planned to fulfill with Schumer this week to debate his idea of how one can fix the school student debt problem after the Supreme Court struck down Biden’s relief plan.

Ackman denied having any plans to run for office and declined to comment concerning the Schumer meeting.

Others say he may very well be attempting to align himself with outspoken business leaders who’re more conservative and have been echoing similar takes, equivalent to Sacks and Twitter owner Elon Musk. Sacks and Musk have each expressed support for Kennedy and GOP presidential candidate Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida.

Lots of those accustomed to Ackman – allies and rivals alike – talked to CNBC on the condition of anonymity so as to openly discuss their stances on why they imagine he has suddenly trained his contrarianism on issues like vaccines and Russia.

Carl Icahn, the veteran activist investor and a longtime adversary of Ackman’s, told CNBC in a phone interview that he believes the Pershing Square CEO’s tweets are yet one more example of how fallacious Ackman will be.

“His tweeting could be a positive. Since I’ve known him, he’s almost never been correct about anything he’s said. Due to this fact if one reads his tweets, and does the alternative, you are almost sure to be correct and really possibly make a big profit,” Icahn said.

“He makes large bets and just like the riverboat gambler, he does win sometimes but often loses hugely. Just take a look at the billions he’s lost in Herbalife and Valeant. Most riverboat gamblers die broke,” Icahn said. “The one difference between him and a riverboat gambler will not be only he’s losing his own money, unfortunately he’s losing a variety of other people’s money, too.”

Ackman declined to comment on Icahn’s remarks.

Institutional Investor reported Ackman broke a three-year winning streak in 2022, registering his first down yr since 2018. Pershing Square Holdings fell greater than 8% for the yr, based on the publication.

Ackman’s recent tweets have turned heads beyond Wall Street, too. Alexander Reid Ross, a disinformation expert who lectures at Portland State University in Oregon, told CNBC that it appears Ackman goes forwards and backwards on different conspiracies – and getting things fallacious.

Reid Ross pointed to Ackman’s latest tweets pertaining to the Wagner Group’s armed insurrection in Russia.

“Ackman’s profile seems to veer wildly and be interested in statements that could seem interesting and extreme but find yourself fallacious. For example, on the most recent Wagner insurrection, he shares one person saying in effect ‘either [Vladimir] Putin kills Prigo [Yevgeny Prigozhin] or Moscow falls,’ and in one other case he supports the nation that Putin made the entire thing up,” Reid Ross said. “That is veering wildly from one false assumption to the following one, each of which being mutually exclusive.”

As he apparently defended Kennedy’s broadly debunked and criticized stances on vaccines, Ackman also injected himself right into a Twitter battle involving Dr. Peter Jay Hotez, who has pushed back on misinformation related to the coronavirus and vaccines. 

Musk chimed in and said “Possibly @PeterHotez just hates charity.” Hotez refused to debate Kennedy but did say he was willing to go on Rogan’s show to debate his own position on vaccines. He later said on Twitter that “a few antivaxers” showed up at his private residence in Texas “taunting” him to debate Kennedy.

At first, Ackman encouraged a debate between Kennedy and Hotez. Later, he walked back the concept and criticized the doctor, who says on his website that he worked within the “development of coronavirus vaccines including vaccines administered to over 100 million people in India and Indonesia.”

“Based on my further research Hotez doesn’t seem like a reputable advocate for vaccine policy in light of the repeated inaccuracies of his public statements through the crisis and potential conflicts he could have,” Ackman tweeted to his greater than 700,000 followers on June 19.

Hotez responded to Ackman on Twitter the following day.

“Awful to read Mr. Ackman’s account of my activities. I don’t have any pharma conflicts, I co-developed low-cost patent-free Covid vaccines for global health reaching 100 million doses. I never took a cent for any cable news/podcast/radio appearances,” Hotez said.

“And you might have the audacity to present phony conspiracy web sites that monetize the web as your evidence?”

— CNBC’s Lora Kolodny contributed to this report.