Automattic board ousts Mullenweg after 4-1 vote

The board of Automattic, the software company behind WordPress.com, voted 4-1 to place founder Matt Mullenweg on involuntary paid leave, handing the interim CEO role to CFO Mark Davies and throwing the company's strategic direction into question.

"Matt Mullenweg is currently on leave from Automattic," the company said in an emailed statement. "Mark Davies, Automattic's CFO, will lead the company as interim CEO. The Board has full confidence in Mark's leadership and in the team's ability to execute against the company's priorities."

Mullenweg said in a Slack message visible to all employees that Davies "conspired" with board members Ann Dunwoody, Toni Schneider, and Sue Decker to vote him onto paid leave. He said he received the resolution 50 minutes before the meeting and his repeated requests for time to have it reviewed by independent legal counsel were denied. Mullenweg remains on the board of directors, according to Davies.

The ouster lands at a turbulent moment for Automattic, which owns Tumblr, WooCommerce, and Pocket Casts alongside WordPress.com. The company is locked in a legal battle with WP Engine, a WordPress hosting competitor, after Mullenweg demanded the firm pay an 8 percent royalty on monthly gross revenue for using the WordPress brand. WP Engine sued in October 2024, accusing Automattic and Mullenweg of defamation and abuse of power. Automattic filed counterclaims last year, and WP Engine has since alleged that Mullenweg's laptop and a phone were unaccounted for in discovery, according to reports.

The governance crisis follows years of escalating tension under Mullenweg's leadership. In 2024, he told employees to quit with severance if they disagreed with him — 159 did. In April 2025, the company laid off 16 percent of its staff, including some longtime employees with more than a decade of tenure. Mullenweg also threatened to deactivate the accounts of WordPress.org community members who planned to fork the open-source project.

WordPress Ecosystem Shows Signs of Strain

WordPress.org's executive director, Mary Hubbard, said the open-source project is not impacted by the leadership change. "Matt remains the leader of the WordPress project and I remain Executive Director of WordPress," she wrote in a Slack message to the community. "Our teams, priorities, and work continue as planned."

Yet the broader WordPress ecosystem shows signs of strain. WordPress's share of the content management system market has been declining, and attendance at WordCamp, the community's conference series, has steadily fallen. Plugin developers report shrinking paid user bases and rising vulnerability discoveries, partly attributed to AI-generated code.

Employee reaction inside Automattic has been split. Some staff said they were "ecstatic" or "relieved" at Mullenweg's departure, while others expressed mixed emotions because the move creates more instability, according to a source familiar with internal discussions.

The board's decision to act against its founder — who co-created WordPress in 2003 and has led Automattic since its founding — marks one of the most significant governance actions in the open-source software industry. Schneider, who served as Automattic's CEO from 2006 to 2014 before Mullenweg took the role, was among those who voted for the leave. The timing of the decision, which came days after the Burning Man festival ended September 7, has fueled speculation about the board's motivations, though no official reason has been disclosed.

For the wider web infrastructure sector, the ouster raises questions about governance at founder-led software companies and the stability of platforms that underpin a significant portion of the internet. WordPress powers a substantial share of all websites, making leadership decisions at Automattic consequential far beyond the company itself. As a private company, Automattic faces no direct stock market reaction, but the governance upheaval could affect its prospects for future funding rounds or acquisition interest, and it may reshape how the open-source community engages with the WordPress project.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.