Automattic’s board has put founder Matt Mullenweg on a paid leave of absence, with chief financial officer Mark Davies as interim chief executive. Mullenweg announced it himself on Wednesday, in a company-wide Slack message seen by 404 Media, which reported the news first. He wrote that Davies had “conspired” with directors Ann Dunwoody, Toni Schneider and Sue Decker “behind my back,” and that he voted against the resolution. By his account the resolution reached him 50 minutes before the board meeting began, and his requests for time to have independent legal counsel review it were refused.

For hosting companies, what did not change matters more than what did. The change stops at the commercial company. No change has been announced to Mullenweg’s leadership of the WordPress project.

Key facts

  • Who runs Automattic: Davies, previously chief financial officer, is interim chief executive. Mullenweg stays on the board.
  • Who controls WordPress.org: Mullenweg has said it belongs to him personally and he retains control of its infrastructure. Neither that nor his role at the WordPress Foundation changes.
  • Not stated: the reason for the decision, how long the leave runs, or whether he returns to the role.
  • Valuation: BlackRock’s June 2026 filing carries its Automattic shares 83 percent below its 2021 entry price. That is one investor’s internal mark, not a market price.
  • Still live: the WP Engine case, with a sanctions hearing set for September 30.

New Management at the Company, No Change at the Project

Automattic is the parent of WordPress.com, WooCommerce, Tumblr and Pocket Casts. It is not the owner of the open-source WordPress project, and that distinction is what separates what changed this week from what did not.

Mary Hubbard, executive director of the WordPress project, told the WordPress.org community in a Slack message that the project was unaffected. “Matt remains the leader of the WordPress project and I remain Executive Director of WordPress,” she wrote. “Our teams, priorities, and work continue as planned.”

The ownership behind that is more specific than the community long assumed, and it surfaced during the WP Engine litigation. Mullenweg has said WordPress.org belongs to him personally, and he controls its critical infrastructure, which many had taken to belong to the nonprofit WordPress Foundation. The Foundation holds the WordPress trademarks, while Automattic holds an exclusive, perpetual commercial license to use and sub-license them. WP Engine has alleged in court filings that the arrangement was kept from the community for more than a decade, according to The Repository.

None of that is affected by a leave of absence from the company. Mullenweg keeps his stated ownership of WordPress.org, his role at the Foundation and his seat on Automattic’s board. At TechCrunch Disrupt in October 2024 he said he then held 84 percent of Automattic’s voting power.

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What the Board Has Said, and What It Has Not

Toni Schneider, a director and Automattic’s chief executive from 2006 to 2014, put the decision to employees in the same Slack channel. “Automattic’s board has decided to ask Matt to step away from his CEO role and take a leave of absence,” he wrote, adding that the board had asked Davies to take the interim role “while Matt is out.”

Davies told staff that Mullenweg would stay on the board and “will have a voice in setting direction and making decisions.” Automattic’s own statement was brief: Mullenweg is on leave, Davies leads as interim chief executive, and the board “has full confidence in Mark’s leadership.”

No one has said why. Mullenweg’s message did not explain the board’s reasoning, Schneider’s did not give one, and the company’s statement offers neither a cause nor an end date. Mullenweg, Schneider and Davies did not immediately respond to 404 Media’s requests for comment. The Repository reported that Mullenweg replied to a request for comment but did not address the board’s decision, and that it is not clear how long the leave runs or whether he returns to the role.

BlackRock Carries Its Stake 83 Percent Below Entry

The Repository sets the decision against a longer financial backdrop. BlackRock’s latest semi-annual filing for two of its trusts, dated June 30, 2026, carries Automattic shares at about $14.33 each. BlackRock came in at $85 a share in Automattic’s $288 million Series E in 2021, when the company was valued at $7.5 billion. The current mark sits 83 percent below that entry price. On a simple price-per-share basis that implies an equity valuation of roughly $1.26 billion, assuming the share count has not materially changed.

That number needs a caveat and has a counterpoint. Automattic is private with no public share price, so BlackRock’s internal valuation committee sets the figure from its own models and non-public company data. Nasdaq Private Market estimates the share price at $34.82 as of August 27, 2026. That estimate rests on market activity, publicly sourced valuation data and other proprietary information, and it sits at roughly 2.4 times BlackRock’s mark. Davies and Schneider did not immediately respond to The Repository’s questions about the decision or about whether the valuation trajectory played any part in it. Nothing published so far links the two.

The WP Engine Case Runs On Under New Management

The dispute itself runs on unchanged. Mullenweg accused WP Engine of profiting from the open-source project without contributing enough back and sought a royalty for use of the WordPress brand set at 8 percent of its gross revenue. WP Engine sued in October 2024, alleging defamation and abuse of power, and Automattic filed counterclaims last year. In February, WP Engine said Automattic intended to bring royalty claims against ten more competitors. WP Engine has since accused Automattic of failing to preserve evidence, alleging that data from Mullenweg’s messaging app went uncaptured for 20 months and that two of his devices went missing; Automattic has argued no relevant messages were lost. A sanctions hearing is set for September 30.

Automattic is one party to that case, and it now has different leadership. The other pressure point, leadership of the project and control of the WordPress.org infrastructure, has not moved. For a host weighing what this means for its own WordPress business, that is the distinction that matters.