Matt Mullenweg claims to be back in control as Automattic CEO

Matt Mullenweg has posted a message to Automattic’s Slack, claiming he is back in control as CEO of the WordPress.com parent company, according to a screenshot of the message seen by TechCrunch, which was confirmed by two sources. The post arrives only days after Automattic’s board voted to oust Mullenweg as CEO for unknown reasons.

Automattic has been asked to confirm if Mullenweg’s statement is true, but has not yet responded to a request for comment. Mullenweg responded to our inquiry say a blog post is forthcoming. This story is still developing.

On Wednesday, the WordPress founder and a key advocate for the open source community told his team via Slack that Automattic’s board members had “conspired” behind his back by voting to put him on a paid leave of absence. The company’s chief financial officer, Mark Davies, was made interim CEO in the process, he said.

A spokesperson from Automattic confirmed to TechCrunch that Mullenweg was on leave and Davies was interim CEO.

Early Friday morning, Mullenweg shared the following new message on Automattic’s Slack:

“(Don’t call it a comeback…) Howdy everybody! Happy to announce the board is back in agreement, and I’m in control of Automattic. A lot happened in the past 48 hours that we need to sort out, and I hope much of it was a misunderstanding, because I have huge respect and regard for those involved.”

He also posted a link to the YouTube video for LL Cool J’s “Make Said Knock You Out.”

As of yet, no one at Automattic has heard a confirmation from the board. Mark Davies’ Slack account was also deactivated, sources said.

However, TechCrunch heard yesterday that Mullenweg had removed all Slack admins from the Automattic Slack and made a bizarre post about being a “pirate” in which he cursed. (Mullenweg famously does not curse). Given this situation, it’s hard to know if he’s now trolling or if legitimate changes have been made.

After his surprise removal as CEO this week, Mullenweg’s public and private social media posts suggested he wasn’t done fighting the decision. On Reddit, he told those speculating what this meant for the open source community that they didn’t know what they were talking about after initially replying, “Hey y’all. I’m here, just fine,” to a Reddit post linking to the 404 Media article that first broke the news.

On X, Mullenweg also posted that “Things are different than they appear,” and said he was in need of sysadmins and security researchers to help him move some of his stuff hosted at Automattic elsewhere, even though he supported Davies as CEO.

In both places, he suggested that Silver Lake, the PE firm that’s the majority owner of the hosting company WP Engine, which is currently embroiled in a lawsuit with Mullenweg and Automattic, was involved in this plan to “destroy” his life.