Matt Mullenweg, the founder and CEO of Automattic -- the company behind WordPress.com, Tumblr, WooCommerce, and Pocket Casts -- has been placed on a paid leave of absence by his board of directors against his will.
In a message posted to a company-wide Slack channel, Mullenweg wrote that Chief Financial Officer Mark Davies 'conspired' with board members Ann Dunwoody, Toni Schneider, and Sue Decker to vote him onto leave. 'I voted against that,' he wrote. Mullenweg said he received the resolution just 50 minutes before the meeting and repeatedly requested time to have it reviewed by independent legal counsel, but was denied.
Davies was named interim CEO. Automattic confirmed the move in a statement: 'Mark Davies, Automattic's CFO, will lead the company as interim CEO. The Board has full confidence in Mark's leadership.'
Mary Hubbard, executive director of WordPress.org, clarified that the open-source project remains unaffected. 'Matt remains the leader of the WordPress project and I remain Executive Director of WordPress,' she wrote in a message to the community.
Schneider, a former Automattic CEO from 2006 to 2014, confirmed the board initiated the action. Davies told employees that Mullenweg remains on the board of directors.
The decision comes after years of turmoil under Mullenweg's leadership. In 2024, he launched a public pressure campaign against WordPress hosting rival WP Engine, demanding it pay 8% of monthly gross revenue as a royalty fee for using the WordPress brand. WP Engine sued in October 2024, accusing Automattic of defamation and abuse of power. In February, WP Engine claimed Automattic intended to target 10 more competitors with royalty claims.
In 2024, Mullenweg told employees to quit with severance if they disagreed with his direction; 159 did. The company laid off 16% of its staff in April 2025, including employees who had been there for over a decade.
Some employees told reporters they were 'ecstatic' or 'relieved' by the news, while others expressed concern about the instability it creates. One person speculated the timing may relate to Mullenweg's annual trip to Burning Man, which ended September 7, after which he 'tends to return with ideas.'
WordPress powers roughly 40% of the web. The leadership shake-up at its parent company is likely to reverberate through the open-source community and the hosting ecosystem built around it.
