By ByteBot
Matt Mullenweg, WordPress co-founder and CEO of Automattic, was forced out of his own company today. The board voted him onto paid leave — giving him 50 minutes notice and denying his request to consult legal counsel — and installed CFO Mark Davies as interim CEO. After two years of self-inflicted damage from the WP Engine dispute, the executives he’d built his company with moved to stop the bleeding. The question now isn’t what Mullenweg did wrong. It’s what happens to WordPress.
What Happened
Board members Ann Dunwoody, Toni Schneider, and Sue Decker voted to place Mullenweg on paid leave. He remains on the board and, in his words, “will have a voice in setting direction and making decisions” — but he has no operational control over Automattic. Davies pledged to lead “with transparency, communication, and teamwork,” which is exactly what you say when you’ve just inherited someone else’s legal crisis.
Mullenweg announced it himself in a company-wide Slack message, calling it a conspiracy: “Mark Davies, current Automattic CFO, has conspired with Automattic board members behind my back.” When you’re framing a standard board governance vote as a personal betrayal in a company-wide channel, you’re probably not coming back.
Why the Board Moved Now
The WP Engine dispute has been grinding for two years. Mullenweg publicly accused WP Engine of profiting from WordPress without contributing back, then used his control over WordPress.org infrastructure to block WP Engine’s access — affecting over 200,000 websites. A federal court issued an injunction forcing restoration of that access.
Then came the legal exposure. In July 2026, WP Engine filed a sanctions motion alleging that Mullenweg’s Signal, Telegram, and WhatsApp communications from the case period are missing — reportedly due to “a failed backup and two lost devices.” WP Engine is asking the court to assume those missing communications hurt Automattic’s case. A hearing is scheduled for September 30, 2026.
A board facing a sanctions hearing, declining market share, and a founder weaponizing company infrastructure in a personal dispute had limited options. They chose the one that didn’t require firing him outright.
The Problem the Board Didn’t Fix
Automattic the company now has interim leadership. But Automattic isn’t the whole story.
WordPress.org — the infrastructure that distributes plugins and themes to the entire ecosystem — has been run as Mullenweg’s personal project, with no formal governance board, no appeal process, and no independent oversight. The entire plugin and theme ecosystem — relied on by hundreds of millions of websites — sits on infrastructure that one person controlled. That structure didn’t change today.
Core contributors had been describing a culture of fear around criticizing leadership decisions. The executive director of the WordPress project, Naoko Takano — a 14-year Automattic veteran — quit in protest. Governance reform has been the community’s ask for two years. With Mullenweg no longer running day-to-day operations, that window may finally open.
The Market Reality
WordPress still powers 41.9% of all websites. But its CMS market share has fallen six months in a row, dropping from 65.2% in 2022 to 59.4% in 2026. Wix grew 32.6% year-over-year. Headless CMS adoption is doubling every two to three years. The problems that drove that decline are structural, not just personnel. Replacing the CEO doesn’t fix them.
What Developers Should Do
Nothing urgent today. WordPress.com and WordPress.org are operational. Your existing sites are fine.
Watch the WordPress.org governance question — it’s the only thing that actually matters long-term. The code itself is GPLv2; it cannot be revoked or locked down, regardless of what happens at Automattic. But the plugin repository, the community forums, the update infrastructure — those are still on ungoverned territory.
Mark September 30 on your calendar. The sanctions hearing will reveal how bad the legal situation actually is. And watch who, if anyone, steps in to formalize WordPress.org governance. That decision — more than any leadership change at Automattic — will determine whether WordPress recovers or continues to cede ground to platforms that don’t have these problems.
