Did Pfizer mutate the COVID-19 virus so that they could produce and sell vaccines? No, that's not true: Pfizer denied the claim and there is no credible evidence to prove it.
The claim appeared in a video on TikTok, published on February 9, 2023, by the account @pstv_official2/ (archived here). The video shows Zsolt Jeszenszky, a Hungarian conservative pundit and social media influencer, with the text overlay "Pfizer case" (translated from the Hungarian, "A Pfizer ügy," by Lead Stories staff). The claim originated in an undercover video published by Project Veritas in January 2023.
This is what the post looked like at the time of writing:
(TikTok screenshot taken on Fri June 23 15:11:59 2023 UTC)
In the video Jeszenszky claims (translation from Hungarian by Lead Stories staff):
Pfizer deliberately develops virus mutations to be able to produce and sell vaccines.
The TikTok also shows an excerpt of the Project Veritas video, which portrays what is being presented as a hidden camera interview with an alleged Pfizer executive, Jordan Trishton Walker. Walker tells the undercover reporter that Pfizer is mutating the virus that causes COVID in order to create new vaccines. It is not clear who Jordan is, and no credible news or fact checking site has managed to contact him.
(Twitter screenshot taken on Fri June 23 14:37:16 2023 UTC)
On January 27, 2023, Pfizer issued a statement denying that they conducted such research: "In the ongoing development of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, Pfizer has not conducted gain of function or directed evolution research. Working with collaborators, we have conducted research where the original SARS-CoV-2 virus has been used to express the spike protein from new variants of concern. This work is undertaken once a new variant of concern has been identified by public health authorities."
