As amusing as that thought is... I think he could have done that without misrepresenting [the 'contracts' of] open source software so readily.

He stood to gain from this little knife twist, we all may still lose. Who knows what misconceptions were born/the downstream effects. WPEngine was never under any obligation to Matt himself/Automattic/WordPress/the Foundation [whatever distinction - if any - that may offer!]... outside of the license.

I don't believe it's a question of distance overboard, it started there! To quote Kendrick: "colonizer"