By ByteBot
Matt Mullenweg announced Automattic’s new board on September 25: Hugh Howey, author of the dystopian Silo series; Amy Chan, author of Breakup Bootcamp; and two co-founders of IRL, a social app that shut down in 2023. Two weeks earlier, Mullenweg’s previous board had tried to put him on paid leave. He reversed it in 33 hours using his 84% voting stake, fired them all, and built this. The company that runs WordPress.com, WooCommerce, and Tumblr — and indirectly shapes 43% of the web — now has no independent governance layer.
33 Hours Was All It Took
On September 9, Automattic’s board voted to place Mullenweg on paid leave, naming CFO Mark Davies as interim CEO. Mullenweg received notice just 50 minutes before the meeting; his request for independent legal review was denied. By September 11, he was back. He removed Ann Dunwoody, accepted resignations from Toni Schneider and Sue Decker, fired Davies and CLO Andy Missan, and replaced his entire legal counsel — all while an active lawsuit with WP Engine heads toward a September 2027 jury trial.
The original board’s motivation remains officially unstated. However, WP Engine’s legal team had accused Mullenweg of destroying evidence, and the board likely acted to limit Automattic’s legal exposure. He resolved that concern by eliminating the board. As ByteIota reported when the ouster first happened, this conflict has been building for over a year.
The New Board Has No Enterprise Governance Experience
The incoming Automattic board is unconventional, to put it politely. Hugh Howey writes science fiction. Amy Chan writes about heartbreak recovery. Henry Khachatryan and Krutal Desai co-founded IRL, which raised $170 million, misrepresented its user numbers, and shut down in 2023. These are Mullenweg’s personal picks, not independent directors with a mandate to challenge him. Meanwhile, the company just lost its CFO and CLO simultaneously — right before a complex antitrust trial.
Moreover, Mullenweg now holds the titles of CEO, President, Treasurer, and Secretary at Automattic for purposes of Delaware law. There is no corporate check on his authority remaining.
WordPress.org Is Not Governed by WordPress
Here is the structural problem that predates the board drama and will outlast it. WordPress.org — the infrastructure that handles plugin and theme distribution for the entire ecosystem — is not formally governed by anyone. According to reporting on the ongoing governance crisis, it operates as Mullenweg’s personal project, with no oversight board, no appeals process, and no formal governance structure. The community has no mechanism to challenge his decisions.
Furthermore, this is not theoretical. Automattic has already seized control of the Advanced Custom Fields plugin — one of the most-used plugins in the ecosystem — and blocked WP Engine’s access to WordPress.org update infrastructure, affecting over 200,000 websites. Core contributors have described a “culture of fear.” Several signed governance reform letters anonymously because they feared account deactivations. Some had their accounts deactivated anyway.
The WP Engine Trial Changes the Stakes
The WP Engine lawsuit, filed in October 2024, has expanded into a full antitrust case. WP Engine alleges monopolization, attempted monopolization, and tying violations. A third amended complaint claims Automattic intended to target ten hosting companies with WordPress trademark royalty fees and that Mullenweg tried to get Stripe to cancel WP Engine’s payment processing. The trial is set for September 2027.
Notably, Mullenweg replaced his legal counsel after the board ouster. He now enters that trial without an experienced CFO, without his previous CLO, and with a board that has never navigated enterprise litigation. An antitrust ruling against Automattic could structurally limit what Mullenweg can do with WordPress.org infrastructure going forward.
What Developers Should Do Now
The open-source license protecting WordPress code is not at risk. Your ability to use, modify, and redistribute WordPress under the GPL remains intact. However, your dependency on WordPress.org infrastructure and Automattic-controlled plugins is another matter entirely.
- Audit your plugin dependencies — especially Automattic-controlled plugins like Jetpack and Akismet. Know whether you can replace or self-host them if access is disrupted.
- If you host with WP Engine, understand that the lawsuit is ongoing. Further infrastructure disruptions are possible before the September 2027 trial resolves the dispute.
- Monitor the antitrust trial — a ruling in WP Engine’s favor could restructure WordPress governance in ways that benefit the broader ecosystem.
WordPress market share has contracted for six consecutive months through mid-2026. Developers are already weighing the platform’s structural risks. A sci-fi author on the board does not change that calculus. The GPL keeps your code safe; only governance reform will make the infrastructure safe.
