Hey everyone, welcome back to Inc.’s 1 Smart Business Story! News broke yesterday that Matt Mullenweg, the founder and CEO of Automattic, the parent company of WordPress, Tumblr, and Longreads, had been put on a leave of absence by the company’s board. Reporting from 404 Media revealed that Mullenweg announced the news in a company Slack before an executive leadership meeting, writing that Automattic’s CFO, Mark Davies, had “conspired” with board members to remove him. (Davies is now the interim CEO of Automattic.)

In light of these changes, we thought it was a good time to revisit this 2024 feature by David Freedman on Mullenweg’s volatile response to a trademark dispute between WordPress and a $400 million-per-year company called WP Engine. Mullenweg agreed to talk with Inc for our story, but when it was published, he strenuously objected to the profile (as he did with most coverage of the situation.)

“I don’t identify with the term ‘dictator,’” Mullenweg told Freedman. “A nicer way of saying it would be ‘enlightened leader.’

In this story you’ll discover:

Like what you’re reading? Subscribe to Inc. for just $1 for your first month to find out everything you need to know to start and grow your business.

Mullenweg’s open-source empire dominates the web. But his attack on competitor WP Engine may be putting it all at risk.

BY DAVID H. FREEDMAN

Standing in a bathroom at Automattic’s San Francisco offices, Matt Mullenweg is talking to me about toilet paper. He tells me about a time he used a bathroom at Google’s Mountain View, California, headquarters, only to encounter shoddy toilet paper and harsh liquid soap. “Why would a multibillion-dollar company be cheap about toilet paper and soap?” he muses. “These details matter. People care.” 

Stooping to fling open a storage cabinet built into the bathroom wall, he points to a neat stack of wrapped toilet paper rolls. “The best toilet paper you can buy,” he assures me. “How much extra does really nice toilet paper cost? A buck or two?” The handsome bottles of soap by the sinks are premium too, he adds.

I ask him who at Automattic, the estimated $710 million-per-year company of which Mullenweg is CEO, is responsible for toilet paper and soap quality control?

“Me,” he says, beaming. 

Of course, Mullenweg’s control of Automattic extends well beyond the bathroom walls. So does his control over WordPress, the open-source web-content management software that he co-created two decades ago, and that now powers nearly half the web—as well as Automattic’s revenue. He has been referred to by many as the “benevolent dictator for life,” or BDFL, of WordPress, but in recent months, as a spat with an underdog rival unfolded on social media, Mullenweg definitely has come across as more dictatorial than benevolent.

“I don’t identify with the term ‘dictator,’” he says. “A nicer way of saying it would be ‘enlightened leader.’” But just how tightly Mullenweg controls WordPress, and how aggressively he’s willing to wield that control, has caught many by surprise over the past few months. And it all began when Mullenweg got very annoyed, very publicly, at a $400 million-per-year company called WP Engine. 

On September 25, more than 1.5 million websites around the world suddenly lost the ability to make automatic software updates. These sites all used WordPress, which since 2003 has always been freely available to anyone who wants to use it, updates and all. 

The sites also had another thing in common. They all ran on servers operated by WP Engine, the second largest provider of WordPress-related products and services. The problem? WP Engine had royally pissed off Matt Mullenweg for not contributing enough to the open-source community, in his opinion. Mullenweg claims he had been in negotiations with WP Engine for months to get it to cough up its fair share one way or another, but finally decided the company had dragged its feet for too long, leading him to break off talks and go public with his ire.

Mullenweg is chairman of the WordPress Foundation—the nonprofit that supports WordPress and oversees its trademarks, and he controls the website that serves as the gateway to WordPress resources. He is also the founder and CEO of Automattic, the largest business in the WordPress ecosystem. Although WordPress software is freely available, many sites pay companies like Automattic and WP Engine to customize and host their WordPress websites. 

Over the course of about six weeks, the WordPress world seemed to devolve from productive harmony into discord and confusion, as Mullenweg pressed his attacks and WP Engine fired off legal salvos, leaving customers and community members stunned and appalled.

Since late September, a nonstop tsunami of social media outrage has surged toward Mullenweg for weaponizing key WordPress resources. The idea that one person possesses the power to instantly hobble an enormous chunk of the web—and Mullenweg’s willingness to flex that power to chop down a competitor—left companies everywhere wondering how vulnerable their own websites may be.

Mullenweg not only removed access to features for WP Engine employees and customers, but also used the WordPress platform and social media channels to persuade WP Engine customers to switch providers. He even created a website to track how many customers have left WP Engine (more than 25,000). He also silenced potential criticism in his own company by forcing Automattic employees to quickly decide if they would support his crusade or leave with generous severance packages. The moves stunned the tech world, raising doubts about the software that powers almost half of the sites on the internet—including Inc.’s website.

Mullenweg believes he’s standing up for what’s right. He has publicly accused WP Engine of failing to contribute to the community efforts that are essential to maintaining and improving WordPress, even while WP Engine profits from the platform. He also claims WP Engine violated WordPress trademark rights and needs to pay up. 

WP Engine, which denies those claims, has filed a lawsuit against Mullenweg and Automattic. “This is a case about abuse of power, extortion, and greed,” WP Engine says in its suit. Recently, a California district judge seemed sympathetic to that argument, ordering Automattic to restore WP Engine’s access to all WordPress resources until the case is decided. (WP Engine declined to make an executive available to talk about any matters related to the litigation.) 

Mullenweg’s war on WP Engine has also cast a shadow over the entire world of open-source software—software that, like WordPress, can be freely downloaded and modified. Open-source software of various types is widely used throughout the world, precisely because it is seen as being free from the risk of proprietary abuse. But the WordPress debacle has demonstrated all too sharply that this belief may have been misplaced.

ChatGPT is a superpower if you know how to use it correctly.

Discover how HubSpot's guide to AI can elevate both your productivity and creativity to get more things done.

Learn to automate tasks, enhance decision-making, and foster innovation with the power of AI.

Download the free guide.