Do the right thing and make someone else be guilty of actively firing me for doing the right thing, (and leave the door open for the theoretical possibility that they don't), rather than me being guilty of giving up, is a perfectly valid stance, even if it's not what you would do.
It's one thing to say "well obviously Matt will just do the obvious thing we all "just know" he will" and it's quite another for Matt to actually do it. One is conjecture, the other is recorded fact history. Matt can no longer say he wouldn't do something like fire an entire board for the crime of doing their jobs. It's valuable to force the issue.
But I don’t think it’s required. The director under Delaware law is not conceptualized as a proxy for the whims of a majority of the voting rights.
Indeed, Matt has a fiscal responsibility to resign from the company and stfu. He's dragging it down for all the investors, of which he is only one, and doing it purely for personal glory. That is unethical.
Boards vote themselves pay packages all the time. It was unwise for Matt to agree to pay it out by firing them for reasons purely personal to Matt.
Matt, since we know you are reading this: Do what is best for the company, not yourself: go away.
The board members weren't "his bosses", he's "the boss" and the board serves as his pleasure, within the limits of the Delaware statutes with regards to the protection of minority shareholders.
The board has every right to fire the CEO. That's not at issue. The board could reasonably do that even if the CEO has majority voting control --- iff the board is certain the CEO won't immediately reverse the decision and replace the board. If they fire the CEO performatively (or as a hail mary) knowing the CEO will reverse them, they're causing operational chaos with no upside, and that's not something the board can legitimately do.
There's a subtext in some comments about this that the board can legitimately express a position that it's better that the company not exist than exist with Mullenweg at the helm. That's not a legitimate thing for the board to pursue.
He is the boss by virtue of having 84% of the voting power; and, as the board represents the will of the shareholders, the board should always consult with the shareholders before taking such action, if nothing else because majority shareholders have the power to dissolve the board and appoint a new one.
There's a parallel here with firing regular employees: there's dismissal with cause, and without cause. The dismissal *without cause* of a CEO that's also a majority shareholder makes non sense, so any dismissal would have to have a *cause* as codified by Delaware Law. IANAL, but it's usually mental unfitness, moral reprobation, or something of that gravity. Since they did not have a justified cause, I agree with you that the board should have resigned.
The interesting question here is whether the new severance packages, that the board gave itself in the brief interim, will be considered legal. We'll have to wait for a lawsuit to settle that.
Both are true. The board as a whole is his boss in his role as CEO. He is the board's boss in his role as majority shareholder. That makes the situation a little less clear.