Inside the 33-hour failed boardroom coup to overthrow WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg

On Sept. 9, the six-member board of Automattic—the company that owns WordPress, Tumblr, and other web-based apps—voted to put its CEO, Matt Mullenweg, on leave. The move seemingly came out of the blue: Mullenweg had just returned from his annual trip to Burning Man, and the board was made up largely of directors who had mentored Mullenweg for years.   Mullenweg broke the news himself, in a Slack message to employees: “And the biggest news: I won’t be able to make the [meeting] tomorrow,” he wrote. “@Mark Davies has conspired with @Ann Dunwoody, @Toni, and @Sue Decker behind my back and they voted to put me on a paid leave of absence. I voted against that.” And then, 33 hours later, Mullenweg was back in control, and the three directors who tried to sideline him were gone, along with the company’s CFO and its chief legal officer. “(Don’t call it a comeback…) Howdy everybody!” he wrote to staff upon his arrival, alongside a link to LL Cool J’s “Mama Said Knock You Out.” 

A remarkable level of secrecy surrounded the drama. None of the board members have publicly explained why they suddenly wanted him out of the company. Mullenweg has declined to describe why he was all but fired, or how he quickly got back control of the company. 

Even some of Automattic’s investors were left guessing; a person familiar with BlackRock’s investment in the company said they learned of the board’s move from news reports and still don’t understand how Mullenweg was able to undo it. “I don’t understand how he basically reinstated himself and reversed the decision of the vote,” the person said. “That makes no sense to us.” 

But interviews by Fortune with former Automattic employees, along with court filings, show a company long-divided against itself in an as-yet unresolved civil war over Mullenweg’s fight with WP Engine, a company that sells WordPress hosting. At most companies, such a piece of litigation would be an issue best left to the general counsel’s office. But at Automattic, Mullenweg’s pursuit of WP Engine—and his colleagues’ disagreement with that strategy—has led to the departure of 159 staffers, so far. 

The legal battle has become a liability for the company. WP Engine sued both Automattic and Mullenweg in October 2024, accusing them of attempted extortion, and later added antitrust claims that a federal judge revived on Sept. 24 of this year. If WP Engine wins those claims, federal antitrust law could let it collect three times its damages. Automattic countersued a year after the original suit, accusing WP Engine of trademark infringement. WP Engine has now asked the judge to throw out those claims as punishment for Mullenweg’s alleged bad-faith conduct during the suit, which included what WP Engine called the implausible loss of electronic devices containing messages it was seeking in discovery. 

At a hearing on Oct. 7, four weeks after the board’s vote, the judge overseeing the dispute said he was leaning toward denying that request, according to The Repository, a WordPress industry publication. However, he also said that Automattic’s former lawyers had exaggerated what they had done to preserve Mullenweg’s messages. 

“Destruction of evidence, withholding of evidence in the course of civil litigation is very serious,” Richard Painter, a University of Minnesota law professor and former chief White House ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush, told Fortune. “Companies get in big trouble for that.” If a judge finds a company failed to preserve evidence, he said, “the judge can assume the worst.” 

Neither Mullenweg nor his board responded to multiple requests for comment. 

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