Automattic's board departs entirely after failed attempt to remove CEO Matt Mullenweg

What happened

Automattic's board of directors has been emptied out after directors tried and failed to remove CEO Matt Mullenweg, according to multiple sources cited by TechCrunch.

The board voted to place Mullenweg, the WordPress founder who runs the company behind WordPress.com and WooCommerce, on a paid leave of absence. Rather than step aside, Mullenweg accused the directors of plotting against him in a message posted to Automattic's internal Slack, TechCrunch reports. By Friday he had told employees he was once again leading the company, and Automattic confirmed his return the following day.

A company spokesperson put a precise figure on the interruption, telling TechCrunch that Mullenweg was away "for only 33 hours and 20 minutes" before the company got back to work.

Who is leaving

The departures appear to cover the entire board. Toni Schneider, Automattic's founding CEO who now leads the open social network Bluesky, has given up his seat. TechCrunch notes that Schneider deleted a passage from his personal website that had described his ongoing involvement at Automattic as a director and special advisor.

The two remaining directors, Sue Decker and General Ann Dunwoody, were removed by Mullenweg himself, according to TechCrunch's sources. Decker's LinkedIn profile now dates her Automattic board service from March 2020 to September 2026, even though Automattic's own board page still carried her name at the time of publication.

Asked about the changes, Automattic declined to discuss specific individuals but acknowledged that people had left. In a statement emailed to TechCrunch, a spokesperson thanked the departing directors for their contributions and said the company is excited about what lies ahead with Mullenweg in charge.

The shakeup also explains the wording of Saturday's statement that Mullenweg had returned with the board's full support: the directors who had voted against him were already on their way out. According to TechCrunch, Automattic may announce a new board internally as soon as Monday.

A lawsuit looms in the background

What prompted the board's vote remains unclear, but the company is locked in a high-profile legal battle with WP Engine, a WordPress hosting provider. Mullenweg has accused WP Engine of infringing the WordPress trademark and of contributing too little engineering time and money to the open source project. WP Engine has pushed back in court filings, claiming earlier this year that Automattic planned to press other competitors for royalty payments, and more recently alleging that Mullenweg destroyed evidence in the case across messaging apps including WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram.

The litigation follows an earlier dispute in which Mullenweg deactivated the accounts of several WordPress contributors over alleged plans to fork the open source software.

Why it matters

WordPress is among the most widely deployed publishing systems on the web, and Automattic sits at the centre of both its commercial operations and much of its community governance. When the body that is supposed to hold a CEO accountable votes to suspend him and is instead dissolved, control concentrates further in the founder's hands. Whoever is named to the new board, and how independent those appointments turn out to be, will determine whether the company regains any internal check on its leadership.

The timing matters well beyond Automattic's offices. The WP Engine lawsuit is unresolved and has already widened into disputes over trademark enforcement, contributor expectations and evidence handling. Hosts, plugin developers and agencies that build businesses on WordPress now face continued uncertainty at the top of the ecosystem's most influential company. For the open source community, the episode echoes last year's contributor account deactivations and will intensify the debate over how much authority a single person should hold over a project that millions of websites depend on.