The original actions may have been motivated by a sincere desire to get a freeloading entity to contribute more to the project (although later events make me doubt that sincerity). But that is the cost of open source: all open source licenses let freeloaders use your products without contributing back; if you don't like that, you should have written your own license instead.
What Matt has done, though, is far worse. In his legal filings, he has effectively asserted sole proprietorship of the entire WordPress ecosystem, access to which is gated solely on his whim. Furthermore, he has also argued that previous steps to create a non-profit foundation that is independent of any dictatorial powers were void from the start, and that anyone who thought such actions genuine are laughable idiots. His actions are anathema for an open source project, and even for a corporate product, quite life-threatening.