Xethanol's X-Factor

Of course, celebrity stock-picker Tobin Smith seems to love the company regardless. He dismissed the sharesleuth.com report entirely and seemed to question a follow-up by TheStreet.com as well.

Indeed, Smith's latest update provided no explanations from management -- as he had promised -- but criticisms of those who have questioned the company instead.

"Nothing has changed on the Xethanol story since we last updated you, but the hate-fest stories continue," Smith wrote on his ChangeWave Investing site a day after TheStreet.com's first story on the company. "Don't listen to the nattering nabobs of negativity who want to demonize XNL and me, for some reason. They are trying to start a war of words that I, for one, will not participate in."

Still, Smith's own comments have taken on a more cautious tone these days. Notably, Smith now classifies Xethanol as a "late-stage venture capital" investment that's no ordinary stock. He further warns investors against spending a penny on the shares that they cannot afford to lose.

As previously noted by TheStreet.com, Smith seems to own none of the stock himself.

Meanwhile, Taylor dumped some of his own shares before he got the boot. Following some smaller sales earlier in the year, Taylor sold 100,000 shares at $12.23 apiece in a transaction that turned him into an instant millionaire (if he wasn't one already) back in mid-April. He still controls a huge chunk of shares that, for now at least, are worth nearly $8.5 million on paper.

Horowitz, for one, has been paying attention.

"I'm not saying this will happen," he says. "But if this whole thing goes to zero, he's still made more money than he would have made if he were working at a real job."