Zacharia Calls NRED Mining's AI Rare-Earths Board Role 'Fake'

The company that in June named Katie Zacharia to its advisory board is NRED Intelligent Mining, formerly NovaRed Mining, a small Vancouver copper-and-gold exploration firm that has rebranded around what Wired reports is an "AI-powered rare earths mining operation." Zacharia now says the appointment was "fake."

The June 24 release named her alongside former Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem, who had been added as a strategic adviser eight days earlier. According to the announcement, Zacharia was to provide "strategic guidance" to the board on public affairs, government relations, communications, capital markets visibility, and corporate development as NovaRed advanced both its Wilmac Copper-Gold Project and "emerging artificial intelligence initiatives."

Both sides partly agree none of that happened.

"That was fake," Zacharia told Wired, pointing to strategic marketer Sam Amsterdam, who said the release was issued without her consent. Incoming CEO Valentin Saitarli told the publication that talks had taken place but "never materialized," even as the release and archived advisory-board pages stayed live on the company website. NovaRed has since pivoted to an AI mineral platform called MetalCore, and a retired U.S. Navy commander, Phil Ehr, resigned from the board over the Noem hire.