Two weeks ago, he vowed to fight a reported attempt to oust the board in a letter to shareholders: A day later, Shari Redstone told him and the board to "spend less time focusing on 1) Shari and 2) how to maintain their own directorships, and more time on a long term strategy to increase the value for shareholders and to develop a specific long-term plan to turn around the current state of Viacom." Recently, Redstone's competency has been at the center of a heated legal showdown, with nearly two dozen lawyers descending on a suburban Boston courtroom last week to argue over whether Redstone was in his right mind when he removed two of the trustees who will control the mogul's media empire if he becomes incapacitated or dies. Lawyers for the removed trustees, Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman and director George Abrams, say Redstone is mentally incompetent and barely clinging to life — and that it was Redstone's daughter, Shari, who pulled the strings to have their clients removed.