At Hewlett Packard Enterprise, CEO Antonio Neri is facing off against an activist investor with a history of forcing out chief execs

• Activist investor Elliott Management’s $1.5 billion stake in Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) is a problem for CEO Antonio Neri, due to Elliott’s history of ousting CEOs. HPE recently tanked its own stock by failing to spot an error in the way it priced its inventory. Both companies have been silent on negotiations between them but clues as to what Elliott wants from HPE are hiding in plain sight.

It was first publicly reported in April that the activist investor group Elliott...