The Bear Cave #294

New Activist Reports, Recent Resignations, and Tweets of the Week

Oct 05, 2025

Welcome to The Bear Cave! Our last premium articles were “Problems at DraftKings (DKNG)” and “More Problems at DraftKings (DKNG)” and our next special investigation comes out Thursday, October 16.

New Activist Reports

Fuzzy Panda Research published on Rezolve AI (NASDAQ: RZLV — $2.19 billion), which makes AI-powered solutions for e-commerce companies. Fuzzy Panda called Rezolve “a $2bn market cap SPAC that used to be a mobile phone tech [company] created by a CEO infamous for fake customers & fake partnerships.” Fuzzy Panda alleged the company was essentially a “ChatGPT wrapper” with minimal proprietary tech and raised concerns about related party transactions with the company’s CEO.

Grizzly Research also published on Rezolve AI (NASDAQ: RZLV — $2.19 billion) and “[concluded] that the business is nothing more than smoke and mirrors.” Grizzly alleged the company’s growth is being driven by low-quality acquisitions and compared Rezolve AI to previous failed ventures of the CEO. Grizzly also highlighted very critical Glassdoor reviews on the company with one former employee calling it “a complete dumpster fire” and several others complaining of delayed paychecks.

Spruce Point published on DraftKings (NASDAQ: DKNG — $17.6 billion), an online sportsbook and gaming company. Spruce Point highlighted the growing competitive risk posed by prediction markets like Kalshi, which Spruce Point found often offers better odds than incumbent online sportsbooks. Spruce Point also highlighted Kalshi’s fast growth in sports markets and said incumbents like DraftKings “are stuck between a rock and a hard place” because they are constrained by regulators in a way prediction markets are not and if they launched their own prediction markets it would be at economics less favorable than their current offerings.

Capybara Research published on Richtech Robotics (NASDAQ: RR — $993 million), a company building automated robots primarily for the food service and hospitality sectors. Capybara called the company “a China hustle riddled with fraud” and said that recent investor speculation about a partnership with Walmart is likely “a limited pilot program involving a single store.” Capybara wrote,

“Former insiders allege that this is a common tactic used by Richtech. They find a small customer associated with a large brand, entice that customer to sign a pilot project, and they then misrepresent the small pilot as a deal with a large enterprise customer with thousands of locations.”

Manatee Research, founded by the former head of research at Hindenburg, published its inaugural report on Slide Insurance Holdings (NASDAQ: SLDE — $1.98 billion), a Florida-focused homeowners insurance company. Manatee alleged that “claim delays and claim denials account for a significant portion of Slide’s underwriting outperformance” and further alleged that Slide’s “technology claims are significantly overstated.” Manatee concluded,

“We believe that instead of a fast-growing technology company with superior underwriting, Slide has simply been vacuuming up inordinate amounts of policy risk. With cheap policy sources becoming depleted, Florida regulators circling key executives and insiders selling, we think Slide is a disaster waiting to happen.”

Slide is down ~30% since its June 2025 IPO.

Recent Resignations

Notable executive departures disclosed in the past week include:

CFO of Matador Resources (NYSE: MTDR — $5.60 billion) “ceased serving” with immediate effect after just three months. The oil and gas company has had five CFOs in the last five years and has been led by Joseph W. M. Foran, its founder, CEO, and board chair for the last 22 years.
CFO of Ads-Tec Energy (NASDAQ: ADSE — $653 million) resigned after nearly one year. The European EV charging and battery company is up ~15% since its December 2021 SPAC merger and is audited by BDO’s German affiliate: BDO AG Wirtschaftsprüfungsgesellschaft.
CFO of Stellantis (NYSE: STLA — $31.0 billion) resigned “for personal reasons” after one year. The company has had four CFOs in the last three years.
CEO of Beauty Health Co (NASDAQ: SKIN — $213 million) stepped down after one and a half years and also departed the board. In February 2023, The Bear Cave published on the company and wrote that “lackluster leadership, high executive turnover, internal accounting issues, and a dubious customer base add to the pressure on the company.” The company has since fallen ~85%.
CEO of Legacy Housing (NASDAQ: LEGH — $594 million) “submitted his resignation, effective October 10, 2025” due to “a personal decision” after a little over three years.
CFO of Better Home & Finance (NASDAQ: BETR — $924 million) “retired to pursue other opportunities” with immediate effect after five years. The stock is up ~500% over the last six months, in part driven by bullish tweets from @EricJackson, who called the company “the Shopify of mortgages.”
General Counsel of Dentsply Sirona (NASDAQ: XRAY — $2.63 billion) “will no longer serve in that role by mutual agreement” after two and a half years. The company has had seven CEOs and nine CFOs in the last ten years. In 2022, the company’s CEO was terminated and the company’s CFO departed amid “an internal investigation into certain financial reporting matters,” which ultimately led to a restatement of the company’s 10-K for 2021. In March 2024, the company also switched auditors from PricewaterhouseCoopers to Deloitte and as recently as April 2025 the company was on the SEC B7A FOIA exemption list, indicating a likely ongoing long-running SEC investigation.

Data for this section is provided by VerityData from VerityPlatform.com

News of the Week

SEC goes after U.S.-listed China stock manipulation “syndicate” (CourtListener)

“SEC Staff is investigating whether dozens of IPOs registered with the SEC and trading on U.S. exchanges between 2020 and 2025 were used as vehicles in a suspected IPO manipulation scheme orchestrated by persons and entities with ties to Hong Kong and China (the ‘Syndicate’). In the days, weeks, and/or months following its IPO, each issuer’s securities experienced unusual, extreme, and unexplained price movements, generally consisting of a large upward price spike followed by a drop to a price far below the high and often below the offering price. Today, these issuers’ securities typically trade at a fraction of the offering price. SEC Staff’s investigation indicates that the unusual price movements following the Relevant Offerings may have resulted from illegal market manipulation that the Syndicate orchestrated…”

SEC Halts QMMM and SDM for Ten Days (QMMM halt, SDM halt)

“The Commission temporarily suspended trading in the securities of QMMM because of potential manipulation in the securities of QMMM effectuated through recommendations, made to investors by unknown persons via social media to purchase the securities of QMMM, which appear to be designed to artificially inflate the price and volume of the securities of QMMM. The order was entered pursuant to Section 12(k) of the Exchange Act.”

“Walmart CEO Issues Wake-Up Call: ‘AI Is Going to Change Literally Every Job’” (WSJ)

“Across the industry, the pace of change will be gradual, said McMillon. For example, customer service tasks in call centers and through online chat functions will become more AI dependent soon and other tasks not, McMillon said.”

The Bear Cave previously wrote about how AI could harm call center companies in “Problems at Teleperformance (TEP)” and “Problems at Five9 (FIVN)”