Automattic's board put Mullenweg on leave at a company that depends on servers he controls

The corporate perimeter is doing the work here. A board's authority runs to the officers and assets of the company it governs, and WordPress.org sits outside that perimeter under Mullenweg's personal control, which is why directors could hand the chief executive's duties to Mark Davies without touching the site and servers through which users obtain plugins, themes and updates ^[1][7]. Automattic sells hosting through WordPress.com, and rival hosts including WP Engine sell hosting for the same free software ^[8]. The vote changed who signs for the commercial company and left the distribution dependency where it was.

The number that started the fight repays a minute of arithmetic. In September 2024 Mullenweg demanded a trademark licence priced at 8% of WP Engine's monthly gross revenue, an amount he estimated at roughly $32 million ^[9]. Taken as a twelve-month figure, that estimate implies a revenue base near $400 million, since 32 divided by 0.08 is 400 ^[18]. A price set as a share of a rival's entire top line is a claim on the business rather than a fee for a mark, which is close to what WP Engine's attorney told Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin that November: "That's not how you calculate a royalty. That's how you set a ransom" ^[13]. Automattic's attorney answered that the proposed licence allowed WP Engine to supply volunteer hours of equivalent value instead, and the judge said she was inclined to grant an injunction but found WP Engine's proposed terms too vague ^[14][15].

A skeptic would say that paid leave with a board seat retained is a holding action rather than a removal, and the record leaves room for that reading, because Mullenweg remains a director and no source states why the board acted now ^[2][6]. The litigation calendar is what gives the move weight. WP Engine sued Automattic and Mullenweg in October 2024 alleging defamation and abuse of power, Automattic filed counterclaims in October 2025 alleging trademark misuse, and on July 28, 2026 WP Engine moved for sanctions in a dispute over missing messages ^[10][11][17]. Those are corporate positions, and from September 9 they belong to Davies to press, narrow or settle ^[1].

The community heard the split described on the day of the vote. Mary Hubbard, the WordPress project's executive director, wrote that Mullenweg remained its leader and that its work would continue as planned; she joined the project after heading governance and experience at TikTok's US operation ^[16]. Toni Schneider, who ran Automattic from 2006 to 2014 before Mullenweg took over, confirmed the board's decision on the internal message board and was named by Mullenweg among the four directors who voted for the leave ^[5][4].

This quarter's question is procedural: who answers the sanctions motion, and whether the 8% theory survives contact with new management. The longer consequence is structural. Roughly 23 months into the litigation, Automattic's board demonstrated it can replace the person running the hosting business, and demonstrated in the same resolution that the update path its customers rely on stays with a private individual whose only formal tie to the company is now a board seat ^[19][7][2].