Automattic's entire board quits after a 33-hour attempt to oust CEO Matt Mullenweg

A 33-hour ouster that flipped

On the morning of Wednesday, September 9, Mullenweg posted in a company Slack channel that CFO Mark Davies had "conspired" with outside directors Toni Schneider, Sue Decker and General Ann Dunwoody to put him on a paid leave of absence. Davies had been voted interim CEO during the planned absence. Mullenweg said he received the resolution 50 minutes before the meeting and was denied time to have it reviewed by independent counsel, according to 404 Media, which first reported the message. Automattic confirmed the action to reporters, and Davies told staff that "nothing will change" during the leave.

By Friday evening, September 11, Mullenweg was telling employees he was back in control, again over Slack. On Saturday, September 12, Automattic confirmed to media outlets that Mullenweg had returned as chairman and CEO with the "full support of the board," TechCrunch reported. The company did not address why the situation had reversed so quickly, and did not explain who was still on the board.

The board and two executives are gone

On Monday, September 14, sources told TechCrunch that the entire board was out. Schneider, the founding CEO of Automattic from 2006 to 2014 who now leads the open social network Bluesky, had removed a paragraph about his board role from his personal website. Decker, a former Yahoo president who joined Automattic's board in March 2020, had updated her LinkedIn profile to show her service ending in September 2026. Dunwoody was removed by Mullenweg himself.

The same sources said Mullenweg had also let go of CFO Mark Davies, who had been set as interim CEO, and Chief Legal Officer Andy Missan. Both executives had updated their LinkedIn bios in September 2026 to show they were no longer at the company. An Automattic spokesperson confirmed the board exits but did not comment on the individual executive departures. "Matt and Automattic's leadership team have great respect for everyone involved," the spokesperson said in an email that arrived after midnight Pacific time on Sunday. "Matt was away for only 33 hours and 20 minutes. We're now back to work," the spokesperson added.

What 1,400 Automattic workers face now

Automattic was one of the first major tech companies to go fully remote, a policy Mullenweg championed after he returned to the CEO role in 2014. The boardroom battle lands on a workforce that has already absorbed sharp cuts. In April 2025, Automattic laid off about 16 percent of its staff, according to TechCrunch, with the company's careers page dropping from 1,774 to 1,495 listed employees in days. Its current about page puts the headcount near 1,400.

The leadership fight is also bound up in a long-running legal dispute with the hosting company WP Engine, which sued Automattic and Mullenweg in October 2024. The suit followed Mullenweg's claim that WP Engine was profiting from the open source WordPress project without contributing enough engineering hours or money. WP Engine has since accused Mullenweg of destroying evidence in apps like WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram. Mullenweg has denied the allegation on X. WordPress.org, the open source project Mullenweg co-founded in 2003, still powers about 43 percent of the websites on the internet according to W3Techs.

Inside Automattic, employee reactions have split. Some alumni and current staff told TechCrunch they were "ecstatic" or "relieved" by the board's exit. Others said they were unsettled by the instability at the top of a company that owns WordPress.com, Tumblr, WooCommerce, Jetpack, Pocket Casts and the messaging app Beeper. An internal announcement about a new board is expected this week.