Matt Mullenweg says he is back as Automattic CEO two days after board removed him

Mullenweg announces his return

Matt Mullenweg has told Automattic staff that he is once again CEO of the company, roughly two days after its board voted to put him on a paid leave of absence. According to TechCrunch, which viewed a screenshot of the Slack message and confirmed it with multiple employees, Mullenweg wrote that the board is "back in agreement" and that he is "in control of Automattic," adding that a lot happened over the previous 48 hours that still needs sorting out and that he hoped much of it was a misunderstanding. He also shared the music video for LL Cool J's "Mama Said Knock You Out."

How the week unfolded

The reversal caps an extraordinary stretch at the WordPress.com parent company. As 404 Media first reported on Wednesday, Mullenweg told employees that chief financial officer Mark Davies had "conspired" with the board, which voted to place Mullenweg on leave — a vote Mullenweg said he opposed. Davies was appointed interim CEO, and an Automattic spokesperson confirmed both the leave and Davies's interim role to The Verge and TechCrunch at the time. Davies separately told staff that Mullenweg would remain a board member, according to 404 Media.

The situation then grew murkier. TechCrunch's sources said Mullenweg had removed all administrators from Automattic's Slack, and that Davies's Slack account has since been deactivated. Even the timing of the comeback message differs between outlets: TechCrunch reports it was posted early Friday morning, while 404 Media, cited by The Verge, placed Mullenweg's posts about his return late Thursday evening.

No board confirmation yet

Automattic has not publicly validated the return. TechCrunch reports that, as of its publication, no one at the company had heard confirmation from the board, and the company did not immediately respond to The Verge's request for comment. Mullenweg told TechCrunch a blog post was coming; it turned out to be about buying a houseboat.

His conduct in between has done little to clarify matters. Asked by TechCrunch whether he was trolling, he replied, "I'm not a troll I'm a pirate, obviously." On X, according to The Verge, he posted on Friday that "If you don't have a coup attempt every few years, you're not hiring strong enough leaders," adding that he thought this was his fifth.

In the days following his removal, Mullenweg suggested Silver Lake, the private equity firm that is majority owner of WP Engine — the hosting company currently in litigation with Mullenweg and Automattic — was involved in a plan to "destroy" his life, TechCrunch reports. He wrote that "Things are different than they appear" and asked for sysadmins and security researchers to help him move personal projects off Automattic infrastructure, even while saying he supported Davies as CEO. On Reddit, he dismissed speculation about what the shakeup meant for the open source community.

Why it matters

Automattic owns WordPress.com, Tumblr and Beeper, and Mullenweg is the most visible figure in the WordPress ecosystem that powers a substantial portion of the web. A founder removed by his own board and reinstated, by his own account, within 48 hours — with no formal explanation for either move — signals serious governance uncertainty at a company central to the open web.

The episode also lands in the middle of an already contentious period. The WP Engine lawsuit has made Mullenweg a combative presence in the WordPress community for over a year, and leadership chaos at the top risks bleeding into contributor and customer confidence. Until the board or the company speaks officially, employees, partners and the broader community are left parsing Slack screenshots, deactivated accounts and houseboat announcements for signal.