Matt Mullenweg Says He’s Back as Automattic CEO Days After Board Ousted Him

Matt Mullenweg has told Automattic employees he has been reinstated as chief executive, just 48 hours after the company’s board voted to place him on a paid leave of absence, according to an internal Slack message reviewed by TechCrunch.

The rapid reversal caps a chaotic few days at the WordPress parent company. Earlier in the week, 404 Media reported that Mullenweg had accused CFO Mark Davies of conspiring with directors, who voted to remove him from the top post and install Davies as interim CEO. Mullenweg, who founded the company behind WordPress, said he cast the lone vote against his own removal. Davies, in a separate message to staff, indicated that Mullenweg would remain on the board.

The turnaround raises questions about what happened within the boardroom between the two votes. Neither the company nor Mullenweg has publicly detailed the circumstances of his reinstatement, and an Automattic spokesperson had earlier declined to clarify his status when contacted by The Verge.

Because Automattic is privately held, the leadership whiplash will not directly show up in public market pricing. Still, the episode lands during a stretch of relative softness in software and infrastructure names: Block, Inc. (XYZ) traded at $79.40, down 1.0% from a previous close of $80.20, with a market cap of about $47.7 billion. In the broader technology sector, hardware-adjacent names also moved only modestly — Ouster, Inc. (OUST), a lidar sensor maker in electronic components, changed hands at $36.43, up 0.69% from $36.18, valuing the company at roughly $3.07 billion.

Automattic’s governance drama carries real stakes for the WordPress ecosystem, which powers a large share of the web’s sites. Mullenweg has been the company’s public face for years, and the episode follows a period of public friction between him and parts of the WordPress community. How the board and management team resolve internal disputes — and whether staff concerns raised in Slack spill into departures — will shape confidence among developers and enterprise customers who rely on the platform.

What to watch

• Any formal statement from Automattic or its board confirming Mullenweg’s role and explaining the reversal.
• Whether Mark Davies remains CFO and what his role will be going forward.
• Signs of employee turnover or public comment from staff following the leadership dispute.
• Reactions from the WordPress developer community and enterprise hosting partners.

Source: original release