Friedman had a very mystical conception of the market - viewing almost as a collective intelligence - and would say in this case that its judgment of the company strategy was correct.
His view would be that if the stock price went up as a result of some action then that action would be the right one (its orthogonal to the point about short term profits).
That's not remotely true. Stock prices are based on long term fiscal results. If shareholders get a whiff of a company sacrificing long term results for short term profits, the share price tanks.
Yeah, but even here you have people parroting this line about "responsibility to shareholders to maximize profits" which is blatantly untrue. You're free to be a sociopathic monster within the limits of the law, but you aren't REQUIRED to.
I saw nothing in the Friedman doctrine that says anything about prioritizing short term results.
But if the company doesn't do what the shareholders want, the shareholders sell, and the stock price goes down.