Yahoo Finance FDA approves booster shots, Facebook CTO steps down, White House’s chip shortage meeting
Yahoo Finance's Julie Hyman breaks down Thursday’s business headlines.
Video transcript
JULIE HYMAN: The Food and Drug Administration, late yesterday, authorized booster shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for people over the age of 65 who received their second shot at least six months earlier. Now, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is tasked with giving more specific guidance on who qualifies and why. The FDA said people at high risk of exposure to COVID 19 at work could get boosters for example. The CDC must now determine which jobs fall into that category.
Facebook Chief Technology Officer Mike Schroepfer, is stepping down next year. Schrep, as he's known, has been with the company for 13 years and oversees artificial intelligence, engineering infrastructure, augmented reality, and VR and the blockchain and Finance unit. In other words, his purview is large.
His pending departure follows the exits of other top executives this year. As well as Wall Street Journal investigative series last week, they critiqued Facebook's ability to regulate its content. Andrew "Boz" Bosworth, who heads Facebook Reality Labs, the company's AR and VR arm, will be taking over,
The semiconductor shortage will cost automakers $210 billion in lost revenue this year. You heard that in our state of the day. And it's the estimate from AlixPartners, which predicts global automakers will build 7.7 million fewer vehicles this year. That's a lot higher than the consultant's previous forecast of 3.9 million.
That data is the backdrop for a meeting today in Washington, where representatives from companies, including Taiwan Semiconductor, Samsung, Apple, Intel, GM, and Ford will gather to discuss shortages. They'll reportedly be asked to be more transparent about the semiconductor supply chain. We will monitor that meeting or any details.
