The board took Automattic from Mullenweg. It could not take WordPress.org.

Automattic's board voted on 9 September 2026 to place founder Matt Mullenweg on a paid leave of absence and appointed chief financial officer Mark Davies as interim CEO. The company confirmed the move, saying the board has full confidence in Davies and in the team's ability to execute against its priorities.

The board can remove Mullenweg from the company. It has no authority whatsoever over WordPress.org, which he owns personally.

What happened in the Slack channel

In an internal message to all staff, Mullenweg wrote that Davies had "conspired" with board members Ann Dunwoody, Toni Schneider and Sue Decker "behind my back" to vote him onto leave. "I voted against that. Wishing Mark and all of you the very best," he wrote.

He said he received the resolution 50 minutes before the meeting began and was refused repeated requests for time to have it reviewed by independent legal counsel. Schneider, who was Automattic's CEO from 2006 to 2014 and remains on the board, confirmed the decision in the same channel. Davies told staff Mullenweg would stay on the board and would have a voice in setting direction.

Mullenweg's public response was a post on X: "I've been in meetings all day, what'd I miss? Is there a new iPhone?"

The half the board does not control

WordPress executive director Mary Hubbard moved quickly to tell the open source community nothing had changed for the project. Mullenweg remains its leader, she wrote, and she remains executive director.

That is accurate, and it is the problem. Mullenweg personally owns the WordPress.org domain and its infrastructure, a fact the community largely assumed was untrue until it surfaced during the WP Engine litigation. The WordPress Foundation owns the trademarks, but Automattic holds an exclusive perpetual commercial licence to use and sub-license them, an arrangement WP Engine has alleged in filings was concealed for over a decade.

So a company now run by an interim CEO depends commercially on a project, a plugin directory and an update server controlled by the man that company's board just removed. Hosts, agencies and plugin developers all pull from infrastructure that sits outside any corporate governance structure at all. That was the governance concern raised in 2024. Nothing about this week's vote resolves it.

Why the board moved now

Neither Automattic nor the board has given a reason. What is on the record is a valuation trajectory.

BlackRock's semi-annual SEC filing dated 30 June 2026 values its Automattic shares at roughly $14.33 each. It bought in at $85 per share during the $288 million Series E in 2021, when Automattic was valued at $7.5 billion. That is an 83 percent decline, and the markdowns have accelerated: $31.03 in March 2025, $26.10 by September, $17.20 in March 2026, $14.33 in June.

Because Automattic is private, BlackRock's valuation committee sets that number using the company's own non-public financials, which makes it more than an outside guess. Nasdaq Private Market, working from secondary trades, puts the share price at $35.66 as of August, roughly 2.5 times higher. Mullenweg has said BlackRock holds about 0.6 percent of the company with no voting rights, and that he controls 84 percent of the voting power.

Two years of attrition

The turbulence started at WordCamp US 2024, where Mullenweg called WP Engine a "cancer" to WordPress and demanded 8 percent of its annual revenue as a trademark royalty. WP Engine sued in October 2024 alleging abuse of power, attempted extortion and anti-competitive behaviour. Mullenweg has estimated each side is spending around $15 million a year on legal costs.

In October 2024, 159 employees took an "alignment" package and left rather than back his position. In January 2025 Automattic cut its WordPress contributions from roughly 4,000 hours a week to 20. In April 2025 it laid off 16 percent of its global workforce, around 280 people.

The litigation is still live. WP Engine has accused Automattic of destroying evidence, alleging Mullenweg's messaging data went uncaptured for 20 months and that two of his devices went missing. Automattic denies any relevant messages were lost. A sanctions hearing is scheduled for 30 September.

What Davies inherits

Automattic owns WordPress.com, Tumblr, WooCommerce and Pocket Casts. The interim CEO takes on the litigation, the layoffs, an 83 percent paper markdown from a major investor, and a commercial dependency on a project he does not control and cannot negotiate for.

Neither the company nor the board has said how long the leave lasts or whether Mullenweg returns. Until someone answers the WordPress.org ownership question, the answer barely changes the shape of the risk.