So far I have this command that works
gnome-terminal --tab -e '/bin/bash -c "ls";bash'
but there is a warning
# Option “-e” is deprecated and might be removed in a later version of gnome-terminal.
# Use “-- ” to terminate the options and put the command line to execute after it.
and when I change it to
gnome-terminal --tab -- '/bin/bash -c "ls";bash'
New tab fails with
There was an error creating the child process for this terminal
Failed to execute child process “/bin/bash -c "ls";bash” (No such file or directory)