It's interesting that Ackman seems to have been doing against Herbalife exactly what his opponents were doing when they were shorting Valeant. With Valeant, Ackman seemed pretty naive and/or delusional about its value and operations.
(That said, Valeant still exist today, despite its extremely immoral and shady past doings. I was dismayed to find recently that one of my favourite brands, CeraVe, is actually a Valeant company.)
Problem with Ackman is he thinks he's doing God's work by shorting Herbalife, but in reality if he wanted to "do good" himself he would have gone to law school and taken up the cases themselves (pro bono likely), or pay lawyers to take it on. Maybe the exploited customers would have even won a larger class action. Even though he showed a human side, Ackman failed at doing what he's supposed to do which is invest other people's money.
He might say he's shorting for a good cause, but we don't know if that's true. From what we know of his Valeant involvement, there's nothing indicating that his investment decisions are based on morality.
(Based on how much money he's lost, as mentioned elsewhere in this thread, it's hard to say exactly what else his investment decisions are based on.)
(That said, Valeant still exist today, despite its extremely immoral and shady past doings. I was dismayed to find recently that one of my favourite brands, CeraVe, is actually a Valeant company.)