I totally disagree, he does need to be a manipulator. Being a tyrant in this situation doesn't get him any benefit.

He didn't go that route of the tyrant though, at least not yet. So I am not quite sure what your point is? The route he took was manipulation so that he could appear as a victim, go read his tweets about "steemit inc being hacked" He did this whole "i am a victim" thing on twitter.

Buying SP and doing all of that would just mean that the witnesses hardfork him off and nobody pays attention to his minority chain with no users. He needs users and community for value. There is no value if no users/community.