• A witness who testified against Andrew Left has himself become involved in an insider trading probe.
• Left's lawyers asked a judge to toss the jury verdict that found him guilty of securities fraud.
• Prosecutors said they didn't learn about the investigation until after the trial was over.

A witness who testified against Andrew Left has himself become involved in an insider trading probe, bringing a new twist to the bombastic short-seller's fraud conviction.

Left's lawyers this month asked the judge who oversaw his trial to toss the jury's verdict convicting him of 13 counts of securities fraud. The trial was irredeemably unfair, they said, because they never had the chance to ask the witness about the investigation and attack his credibility.

"A new trial would probably produce an acquittal," Left's lawyers wrote.

In June, a federal jury in Los Angeles found Left guilty of 13 counts of securities fraud. Prosecutors said he deceived investors by using social media and research reports to set target prices for stocks — including Tesla, Nvidia, and Palantir — while quietly trading them at different prices with his own money.

The founder of Citron Research, Left is something of a short-seller celebrity. He placed bets against GameStop at the same time it became a meme stock, which pitted him against some retail traders on social media. For years, he was a fixture on CNBC and Bloomberg, where he shared his views on stock prices.

Left hasn't been sentenced. In addition to the criminal case, he faces a parallel civil lawsuit from the Securities and Exchange Commission that remains unresolved.

Left's criminal conviction shook certain corners of Wall Street, which viewed the trial as a referendum on free speech and the legality of activist short-seller tactics. Left, testifying in his own defense at the trial, said that the views he shared about public companies were sincere.

One of the trial's prosecution witnesses was Daniel Bachus, the CFO of Grand Canyon Education, a publicly traded technology company that provides services to universities. Left's lawyers say that Bachus was the only witness who testified that Left used his Citron Research reports to lie about a company, not merely omit information.

On August 21 — weeks after the trial ended — Grand Canyon Education placed Bachus on paid administrative leave "in connection with an ongoing governmental investigation" involving a non-employee's trades of the company's stock, the company said in an SEC disclosure. The prosecutors in Left's case referred to it in their own filings as an "insider trading investigation."

No government agency has publicly accused Bachus or Grand Canyon Education of any misconduct in connection with the investigation. In the SEC disclosure, the company said it wasn't the focus of the investigation. Representatives for the SEC and for Grand Canyon Education declined to comment. Bachus didn't respond to Business Insider's requests for comment.

Left's lawyers say they should have been informed about the investigation at the time of the trial so that they could cross-examine Bachus and try to convince the jury that he wasn't a credible witness.

"This evidence would have destroyed the credibility of the government's only false-statements witness," they wrote in a filing.

The prosecution team told Left's lawyers it didn't learn about the investigation until after the trial was over. It's not clear which government agency opened the investigation, nor when Bachus or Grand Canyon Education became aware of it. Many of the filings about the issue remained sealed or redacted on the court docket for Left's case.

In court filings, Justice Department prosecutors said Left's lawyers overstated Bachus' role in the short-selling case, which alleged securities fraud involving more than a dozen different public companies. They said Left wanted to conduct "his own shadow investigation into Bachus" to try to discredit him as a witness.

"The law does not permit fishing expeditions in search of a claim," prosecutors said.

Left declined to comment. Left's attorney Eric S. Rosen said he could not comment because many relevant documents remained under seal.

A spokesperson for the US Attorney's office in Los Angeles declined to comment.

• Nvidia's communications operation has been reshaped as the company became the face of the AI boom.
• Roughly 15 staffers have left the lean team since 2025 as Nvidia reorganized its communications org.
• Former employees described growing workloads as responsibilities expanded.

Nvidia's communications organization has been reshaped as the company became the face of the AI boom, with multiple teams brought under new leadership and a string of departures.

Business Insider identified roughly 15 communications employees who have left Nvidia since 2025, based on LinkedIn profiles and interviews with former employees.

The organization now numbers roughly 70 to 80 people globally, and has more than doubled in size since Mylene Mangalindan joined as vice president of corporate communications in 2023, according to a person close to the company.

The departures have also included newer hires. Anna Soellner, who was recruited to lead corporate communications, left after roughly four months, Business Insider previously reported.

Nvidia is known for high retention. It reported companywide turnover of 3.7% in fiscal 2026, up from 2.5% the prior year, and well below the tech industry average of 21.9% cited in its latest sustainability report.

Mangalindan succeeded longtime communications chief Bob Sherbin, who retired in 2024. She previously worked at the advisory firm Brunswick Group.

She was brought in to "bring fresh blood" and "upgrade the team" to meet Nvidia's growing profile, one former employee said.

At the end of 2024, Nvidia restructured its communications organization. It brought enterprise public relations under Mangalindan's leadership alongside the corporate communications team she already led, according to two former employees.

Corporate communications focuses on Nvidia's reputation and major media outlets, while enterprise handles product and industry messaging, including for its data center business.

One former employee said the consolidation reflected the growing importance of Nvidia's data center business, which sells chips and systems that power AI and had become its biggest revenue driver.

Analyst relations, social media, and influencer marketing also moved under Mangalindan's remit this year, another former employee said.

Three former employees said Nvidia's communications team had long operated with relatively lean staffing, even as workloads grew alongside the company's public profile, leaving staff juggling multiple responsibilities.

These employees said they experienced long hours, difficulty taking time off, and pressure to respond quickly to emails and Slack messages.

A person close to Nvidia said the company's lean staffing allows employees to move quickly and also requires long hours. The person said Mangalindan encourages staff to take vacation, though the team's small size can make scheduling time off difficult, particularly in the summer.

Nvidia is widely known for its demanding work environment. CEO Jensen Huang has emphasized operating at the "speed of light" and is known for fostering a culture of constant accountability.

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• OpenAI's Alexander Embiricos said the AI era gives a choice: work more, or work less.
• He's in charge of Dots, the company's new always-on work assistant.
• AI is often pitched as freeing up time. Embiricos responded to the idea that it might add more work.

As the competitive AI race pushes tech workers into long hours, the head of OpenAI's new Dots product says AI gives people another option: work a whole lot less.

Alexander Embiricos, who leads OpenAI's enterprise product and helms the new Dots agent tool, told a crowd at TechCrunch's Disrupt conference on Thursday that AI's capabilities have created something of a fork in the road for workers. You can grind to meet the moment. Or you can use AI to kick your feet up a little.

"We basically have a lot more choice now," he said.

Embiricos made the comments after a reporter asked about when AI systems will actually deliver more free time. The reporter shared an anecdote where an OpenAI employee used a ChatGPT mobile feature to work in their car and on a plane — not exactly liberated by the new tech.

Embiricos said that the moment has already arrived where a worker can "outsource" tasks to AI and do less work. Then again, some people are so excited about AI's potential that they feel like it's an "interesting, ripe moment" to put in extra hours.

"I think that's why a lot of people are motivated to work very hard right now. That includes myself," he said. "But I think actually there is this choice, and there's totally this other setup where you could delegate a ton more things."

OpenAI is billing its Dots tool as a workplace assistant, always on and capable of proactively handing tasks and sorting to-dos. Embiricos uses his Dot often in Slack, he said, engaging on various threads.

His perspective illustrates how early companies are in their journey to adopt AI tools. Most companies have not yet automated their work tasks, and many workers are still debating how much to use the tools. Early AI adopters, meanwhile, can sprint through some work that used to take days or weeks, especially in software engineering.

Embiricos summed up the situation he feels workers are in: "You either choose: do you expand the ambition of what you can do, or do you do less? I do think we're there."

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• Two watchdog groups asked the California state bar to investigate White House spox Katie Zacharia.
• She worked as a general counsel in California. The state bar has no record she was licensed there.
• Zacharia said she consulted with people in the field to see if she could label herself a lawyer.

A growing chorus is voicing concern about White House press secretary Katie Zacharia's self-described legal career.

Two watchdog groups Wednesday filed complaints with the State Bar of California, asking it to investigate whether she violated California law by calling herself a lawyer.

It is a misdemeanor in California to practice law or advertise yourself as an attorney if you don't have a license to do so.

Several law and legal-ethics professors told Business Insider that if Zacharia misrepresented herself as an attorney, or used a title like general counsel without having been admitted to the bar, that could land her in trouble with state bar officials should she try to join in the future.

Substack publication Popular Information this week reported that Zacharia hadn't been admitted to any state bar, and The Wall Street Journal reported that she failed California's bar exam after graduating from law school in 2011. After her graduation, she moved to China, where she worked for a law firm as an associate on an international practice team.

Zacharia Thursday defended calling herself a lawyer.

In an interview Thursday with right-wing activist Jack Posobiec, Zacharia said she considered her bar exam results "inconsequential" because of her impending move to China.

"After moving to China, I didn't really think much of the bar results or consider that something that I needed to focus on," she said.

She told Posobiec that she "consulted for a very long time with many people in the field" to see if she could label herself a lawyer and offer legal analysis, not "legal advice." She also said she wouldn't weigh in on legal matters as press secretary.

President Trump's new press secretary has repeatedly referred to herself as a lawyer. Her LinkedIn page says she worked as a general counsel in California, and on Tuesday, in a statement to Business Insider, she said she had "practiced international transaction law, with all the appropriate credentials."

Zacharia used her legal pedigree to give herself credibility in her White House role, the Campaign for Accountability said Wednesday in its complaint to the California bar.

"The public is entitled to rely on the representation that a person who calls herself a lawyer is in fact licensed to practice law," the group wrote.

White House Communications Director Steven Cheung said Thursday that Zacharia "is uniquely qualified and whip smart to help inform the American people about all the great things President Trump and his Administration have been doing, and she will do an incredible job as Press Secretary."

In an X post Wednesday, Cheung referred to the Campaign for Accountability as a "radical leftist-organization run by rabid numbskulls suffering from a severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome."

"Nobody takes them seriously because they are deranged low lifes," his post said.

Watchdog group Democracy Defenders Fund also filed a complaint with the bar.

'Character and fitness'

There is no record that Zacharia has ever been licensed to practice law in her home state of California, a spokesperson for the state bar told Business Insider.

Zacharia earned her law degree at California's Pepperdine University in 2011, then moved to China, according to her LinkedIn page.

She later served as general counsel for Fix California, a political advocacy group, between January 2024 and March 2025, her LinkedIn page says. Richard Grenell, the founder of Fix California and a state department official in the Trump administration, didn't respond to requests for comment about Zacharia's work for the organization.

That résume entry could hurt her chances of admission to the bar in future, legal-ethics professors told Business Insider.

The bar admissions process in most states includes a step in which the bar evaluates prospective members' "character and fitness," according to Richard Zitrin, a legal-ethics professor at the University of San Francisco's law school.

Claiming to be a general counsel in California would cut against her if she didn't have a license to practice law at the time, Zitrin said.

Business Insider reviewed records for all 50 states and the District of Columbia and found no evidence that Zacharia had been admitted to any state bar in the US.

A law firm in China

Zacharia moved to China with her husband because of his job at an American private equity firm, the White House said.

In China, only Chinese nationals can become a member of the country's bar and practice law, experts in the Chinese legal system told Business Insider.

According to her LinkedIn page, Zacharia worked for Zhong Lun, a large law firm in Beijing, between 2011 and 2013. Asked by a reporter on Tuesday which state she passed the bar exam in, Zacharia responded, "When I moved to China."

Unlike the United States, where the bar admission process varies by state, China has a single unified bar exam process. It is available only to Chinese nationals and generally requires a degree from a Chinese university, according to Jacques deLisle, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania law school who studies the Chinese legal system.

"The odds that she is a member of the Chinese bar are essentially zero," he said. "Both because of the citizenship requirement and the education requirement."

It's possible for employees of international law firms to do some work on transactions without passing a bar exam, but the scope of the work they're permitted to do is limited, according to Taisu Zhang, a professor of Chinese law at Yale Law School. Those firms generally require employees to pass a bar exam within a few years, he said.

Law firms like Zhong Lun often hire recent foreign law school graduates to review contracts and advise on elements of US law for transactions, but they need to "stay within the edges" of their work so that they don't cross into practicing law, which is illegal in China, deLisle said.

"She was never a lawyer in China. It doesn't mean she didn't do law-related work, but she was never a lawyer in China," deLisle said.

Representatives for Zhong Lun didn't respond to Business Insider's requests for comment.