I would call them heroes if they short corporations that were going to go down eventually because 1) they were committing fraud and/or 2) they did not have a sound business plan or not running their business well and they short the shares BEFORE anyone else because they did excellent due diligence like what Michael Burry did. The housing bubble and the mortgage lending industry were propped up by fraud and the credit rating agencies were covering it up so Burry shorted them because they were eventually going to go down so he was right to profit from it; he was a hero, a reluctant one I am sure. That's why he closed his fund right away after having profited from the financial crisis. If you shorted the corporations who were really a victim of external factors that were really out of their control like the Fed raising interest due to the government printing money irresponsibly (if the Fed. hadn't raised the interest rate, SVB would still be standing right now) and you shorted them after the cat is out of the bag and you saw everybody is shorting and you just wanted to join in the fray, then you are a vulture, an opportunistic one.
As Icahn says, too many of these CEOs are stupidly over-paid, for being stupid. He's made so much money not because he was a genius, but the system is so bad.