Automattic Board Places Founder Matt Mullenweg on Leave, Installs CFO Mark Davies as Interim CEO

Matt Mullenweg, the man who built WordPress and turned it into Automattic, got voted out of his own CEO seat by his own board.

On Wednesday, September 9, Mullenweg told staff in a company-wide Slack channel that Automattic Chief Financial Officer Mark Davies had "conspired" with board members Ann Dunwoody, Toni Schneider, and Sue Decker to put him on paid leave of absence, according to 404 Media, which first reported the message. "I voted against that," Mullenweg wrote. "Wishing Mark and all of you the very best."

Mullenweg said he got almost no warning. "I received the resolution 50 minutes before the meeting start, and requested repeatedly for time to have it reviewed by independent legal counsel, even a few hours, which was denied," he wrote, per 404 Media and TechCrunch.

Automattic confirmed the move in a statement to multiple outlets, including The Verge and TechCrunch. "Matt Mullenweg is currently on leave from Automattic," spokesperson Megan Fox said. "Mark Davies, Automattic's CFO, will lead the company as interim CEO. The Board has full confidence in Mark's leadership and in the team's ability to execute against the company's priorities."

Toni Schneider, who ran Automattic as CEO from 2006 to 2014 and sits on the board, posted her own message in the same Slack channel confirming the board initiated the action. "Automattic's board has decided to ask Matt to step away from his CEO role and take a leave of absence," she wrote, according to 404 Media. "We've worked closely with Mark over the years and we're confident he will steer the ship well while Matt is away."

Davies, for his part, told staff Mullenweg keeps his board seat and "will have a voice in setting direction and making decisions." Neither Automattic nor any board member has publicly explained what triggered the vote.

WordPress.org says it's unaffected

Because Mullenweg wears two hats, running Automattic the company and leading the separate WordPress.org open-source project, the news set off confusion about whether the software itself was in trouble. WordPress executive director Mary Hubbard moved to shut that down fast. "This change does not impact the leadership or direction of the WordPress project," she wrote on the WordPress Slack, according to 404 Media and The Repository. "Matt remains the leader of the WordPress project and I remain Executive Director of WordPress."

The Repository notes Mullenweg personally owns the WordPress.org domain and underlying infrastructure, separate from Automattic's corporate structure. That fact has been part of the community's long-running unease about how much power one person holds over an open-source project used by roughly 40% of the web.

The backdrop: a two-year war with WP Engine

Mullenweg has spent nearly two years locked in a legal and public-relations brawl with WP Engine, a WordPress hosting company he accused of profiting off the open-source project without giving back. WP Engine sued Automattic in October 2024, alleging defamation and abuse of power, and Automattic countersued.

Search Engine Journal reported that Automattic now also faces a motion for sanctions accusing Mullenweg of failing to preserve evidence, with the company's own e-discovery vendor, Jonathan Robins, saying Mullenweg's laptop and a phone are unaccounted for. No court has ruled on that motion, and no charges have been filed against Mullenweg. It remains an unproven allegation inside active civil litigation.

Search Engine Journal's Roger Montti links the fallout to a broader slide: declining WordPress market share among content management systems and shrinking attendance at WordCamp, the community's flagship conference. Those are Montti's own observations, not figures independently confirmed by the other outlets in this story. They sit alongside separate, well-documented turmoil, like Mullenweg's 2024 "Alignment Offer," which gave employees six months' pay or $30,000, whichever was greater, to quit immediately if they disagreed with his direction. TechCrunch and 404 Media both note 159 employees took the deal.

Mullenweg's own account, in his own words, describes a rushed, closed-door vote with no time for legal review. A process like that raises fair questions about whether the board gave him due process even if it had the legal authority to act. At the same time, Automattic and its board have said nothing publicly to justify the timing or the reason, leaving the actual cause of the ouster unconfirmed by anyone but Mullenweg himself.

Mullenweg's public reaction so far has been strikingly flip. On September 10 he posted on X: "I've been in meetings all day, what'd I miss? Is there a new iPhone?"

Automattic hasn't said how long the leave will last or whether Mullenweg returns to the CEO role. He remains on the board. The WP Engine litigation, including the pending sanctions motion, continues regardless of who holds the CEO title.