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Matt Mullenweg, Automattic’s CEO, Seems Bound and Determined to Wreck WordPress


Matt Mullenweg, Automattic’s CEO, Seems Bound and Determined to Wreck WordPress


CEOs normally originate terrible misconsents, but it’s difficult to overweighthom exactly what Automattic CEO and co-set uper Matt Mullenweg skinnyks he’s doing to his company and WordPress.

For decades, one of the easiest decisions a company could originate was to answer the ask: “What satisfyed regulatement system (CMS) should we include for our website?” The answer was, for 472 million sites, WordPress. That’s about 43.6% of all websites for you counting at home. That was then. This is now.

In recent months, Matt Mullenweg, the CEO of Automattic, the company behind WordPress and the well-understandn CMS, has been at the caccess of a satisfyedious dispute that has sent shockwaves thcimpolite the WordPress community. This dispute, primarily between Automattic and WP Engine, a notable regulated WordPress arrangeing company, has changed how WordPress functions, labors with its partners, and how its once loyal customers see it.

It all commenceed in September 2024 when Mullenweg published a scaskinnyg blog post calling WP Engine a “cancer to WordPress.” Shades of Steve Ballmer calling Linux a cancer. We all understand how well that labored. Mullenweg accincluded the arrangeing company of profiting from WordPress branding without proper licensing. He condemnd its beginantity spendor, Silver Lake, for not contributing enough to the WordPress uncover-source project.

Pardon?

Lots of companies originate money from WordPress by adviseing services and comprise-ons. It’s an uncover-source project. That’s how companies profit from them. True, WP Engine is probably the most prosperous third-party WordPress company, with an approximated cherish of somewhere between $500 million and $1 billion. Automattic, however, is worth more than $7.5 billion. What’s the problem?

Mullenweg persistd to rant about the evils of WP Engine. Specificpartner, he disenjoys that WP Engine disables the WordPress revisions utility by default on its arrangeing platestablish. To Mullenweg, this is WP Engine, “naked-mining the WordPress ecosystem, giving our includers a crappier experience so they can originate more money.”

Deinhabitring a crappier experience to their customers is a way to originate money? Interesting business strategy, don’t you skinnyk?

On September 25, Mullenweg prohibitned WP Engine, and therefore their customers, from accessing WordPress.org resources. This cut them off from being able to refresh plugins and themes. WP Engine and its customers were not delightd. This transfer left their websites vulnerable and unable to utilize critical security refreshs. Since then, WP Express has built its own refresh mechanism so its includers can be safe from future Automattic actions seeking to block them from patches.

You can guess what happened next:  The situation rapidly escapostpodemandd into a legitimate battle. WP Engine sued Automattic and Mullenweg on October 3, accusing them of compulsion, intrudence with operations, mistreatment of power and harm to business. The litigation uncovered text messages allegedly shotriumphg Mullenweg adviseing to change his WordCamp speech, where he’d telderly the WordPress community of WP Engine’s “betrayal”  if WP Engine consentd to pay Automattic 8% of its annual revenues, amounting to about $32 million.

How would you react if someone demanded you pay them 8% of your annual revenue? Yeah. Like that.

In the uncomardenttime, Mullenweg and Automattic have intensely denied WP Engine’s accusations, calling the litigation meritless. Be that as it may, the legitimate battle has spilled out over the WordPress community.

For commenceers, Mullenweg compriseed a verifybox to the WordPress.org contributor login, demanding increaseers validate they are not associated with WP Engine. The contributor community expansively condemnd this action, with some inestablishing being prohibitned from the community Sdeficiency for opposing the transfer.

This dispute has also caincluded inner strife at Automattic. In October, Mullenweg adviseed buyout packages to includeees who disconsentd with his actions, resulting in 177 includeees, about 10% of the headcount, leaving the company. Despite this exodus, Mullenweg claimed to experience “more energized and excited” about laboring with the remaining team.

However, that didn’t stop him from shutting down the WordPress Sustainability Team. In a rather astonishing disjoin of pettiness, after the Team rep Thijs Buijs declared in Making WordPress Sdeficiency that he was stepping down from his role, citing a Reddit thread Mullenweg originated asking for adviseions on how to originate more WordPress drama in 2025, Mullenweg replied,  “Today I lgeted that we have a supportability team. … watching at [the] results of the team so far and the ROI of time spended, it’s probably a excellent time to officipartner dismend the team enticount on.”

Top technology journaenumerate Kara Sdesireer was appalled. On Threads, she wrote, “The @wordpress platestablish was where @mossbergwalt and I commenceed All Things D and postpodemandr Recode, becainclude it was so excellent and @photomatt was always very beneficial. But what a pathetic turn for him into a stone-chilly asshole.”

She’s far from the only person who sees him that way. Joost de Valk, an Internet entrepreneur who’s been comprised with WordPress, spoke for many when he wrote, “We, the WordPress community, demand to choose if we’re ok being led by a individual person who administers everyskinnyg, and might do skinnygs we disconsent with, or if we want someskinnyg else.” Many businesses are now wondering if they should persist to count on on WordPress, thanks to Mullenweg’s erratic behavior.

Their dreads were degraded when Automattic declared on January 15, 2025, that it would drasticpartner reduce its contributions to the WordPress uncover-source project. Specificpartner, Automattic scaled back its weekly contribution from approximately 3,988 hours to fair 45 hours. The company’s programmers will, instead, “caccess on for-profit projects wiskinny Automattic, such as WordPress.com, Pressable, WPVIP, Jetpack, and WooCommerce.”

It’s worth noting that WordPress.org, which arranges the uncover-source version of WordPress, relies on the sites and services Mullenweg administers.

Why? Automattic condemns the WP Engine litigations. “This legitimate action redirects beginant time and energy that could otherrational be honested toward helping WordPress’s increaseth and health. We remain certain that WP Engine will reponder this legitimate attack, apvalidateing us to recaccess our efforts on contributions that advantage the wideer WordPress ecosystem.”

What the increaseers, who will now labor on for-profit programs, have to do with the litigation remains an uncover ask.

In the uncomardenttime, more and more increaseers and includers are watching for a WordPress fork as a possible answer. WordPress is licensed under the GPLv2, so forking it is basic legpartner.

Indeed, there are already WordPress forks. The most beginant of these is ClassicPress, an existing fork of WordPress that has acquireed attention as a potential changenative.

Mullenweg’s response to the adviseion of a new fork has been… fascinating. At TechCrunch Disrupt 2024, he shelp, “I skinnyk that’d be wonderful, actupartner. So people can have changenative ruleance or an changenative approach.”

But, when push came to shove, and cut offal WordPress community members, including de Valk,  commenceed to talk about a fork, Mullenweg reacted by deactivating their WordPress.org accounts. This would, he shelp, “originate this effortless and hopebrimmingy give this project the push it demands to get off the ground.”

That’s gone over well in the community. As programmer Gavin Anderegg wrote, “It’s difficult to see how to transfer forward from here.” He persistd,  “These recent events repartner originate it seem enjoy you’re no lengthyer greet to give to WordPress if you ask Matt Mullenweg.

That’s pretty much it.

In response, Mullenweg’s help wiskinny the WordPress community has been declining. At the same time, though, while it may be effortless to fork the code, originateing a community and a gentleware ecosystem to swap WordPress is a much hugeger job, which no one yet seems to be willing to turn their hands to.

Still, as the legitimate battle persists and Automattic reduces its contributions, the future of WordPress increasement remains unconfident. The community is grappling with asks about how these changes will impact the platestablish’s innovation, security, and overall honestion. This, in turn, also uncomardents that CxOs demand to commence solemnly skinnyking about what changenatives they might turn to if WordPress fchanges.

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