The pension fund obviously counts as an investor, and if he is speaking in his role as a representative of that fund, it is an investor speaking (the fund), whether or not he individually counts as an investor in Facebook (which presumably he doesn't, because conflict of interest codes would probably then prevent him from also being involved with investments in the firm on behalf of the public pension fund.)

I mean I was guessing "What is Carl Icahn up to now?".

Why would he not qualify as an investor?

Not his money.

That disqualifies every institutional investor from being called an investor

Unless they are officially speaking on behalf of the fund... yep.

It doesn’t appear that this guy was speaking on behalf of the pension fund, just personally, so really he isn’t an investor.

I don't know about that. Institutional investors have a raft of obligations to their clients, including not doing things like intentionally making their investment go down in value. This is a complicated topic, hence why securities law is a thing, but I wouldn't dismiss something an institutional investor says just because they're not speaking officially. It's still their career, investment track record, and client obligations on the line.

A lot of VCs aren't investors either by that definition.

Yep.