The board of Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com and WooCommerce, departed in mid-September 2026 after a failed attempt to remove its founder and chief executive, Matt Mullenweg. According to reporting by TechCrunch published on September 14, the board had voted to place Mullenweg on paid leave, only for him to reassert control of the company within about 33 hours. Automattic confirmed that Mullenweg remained in charge. The company is a large privately held business, and the open-source WordPress software it helps steer underpins a substantial share of the world’s websites.
The board had designated the company’s chief financial officer, Mark Davies, as interim chief executive during the planned leave. That arrangement did not hold. Mullenweg announced his return on Friday, September 11, and the company confirmed it the following day. By Monday, September 14, the departures of the directors and two senior executives had been reported.
Among those who left, Toni Schneider, an early chief executive of the company, resigned his board seat, and director Sue Decker also resigned. Retired Gen. Ann Dunwoody was removed from the board by Mullenweg. On the executive side, Chief Legal Officer Andy Missan and Davies, the finance chief who had briefly been lined up to serve as interim chief, were both let go.
In a statement, Automattic said its leadership held respect for those involved and thanked them for their contributions, adding that it remained focused on the company’s direction with Mullenweg at the helm. According to the reporting, Mullenweg had accused board members of working against him, describing the dispute in internal messages before he moved to restore his position.
The episode played out against a longer period of pressure at the company. Automattic remains locked in litigation with WP Engine, a WordPress hosting provider, in a dispute that centers on trademark claims and on counterclaims over Mullenweg’s conduct. The confrontation over the chief executive’s status added a governance crisis on top of that legal fight. The board’s exit leaves Mullenweg with tighter control of the company and its direction, and it removes the group of directors that had tried to check him. What the company’s board will look like going forward was not detailed in the reporting.
