WooCommerce owner Automattic put its CEO on leave for 33 hours, then three board members were out
The board of Automattic, owner of WordPress.com and WooCommerce, placed CEO Matt Mullenweg on paid leave on September 9, 2026 and named CFO Mark Davies interim CEO. Two days later Mullenweg told staff on Slack he was back in control; the company confirmed it on September 12. Per TechCrunch, by September 14 the three board members behind the leave vote were out, along with the CFO and chief legal officer.
The board put the CEO on leave; two days later he wrote on Slack that he was back in control
According to TechCrunch's September 11, 12 and 14 reports, Automattic's board decided on Wednesday, September 9, 2026 to place CEO Matt Mullenweg on paid leave and appointed CFO Mark Davies as interim CEO. An Automattic spokesperson confirmed the leave to TechCrunch; no reason was given. Mullenweg told his team on Slack that the board had conspired against him. Early on Friday, September 11, he posted in the company Slack that the board was back in agreement and that he was in control of Automattic, then removed every Slack admin, using rights that, as SEJ later noted, Automattic had neglected to revoke; according to TechCrunch's sources, Davies's Slack account was deactivated. TechCrunch wrote that day that the situation was genuinely unclear and unconfirmed by Automattic. Official confirmation came on Saturday, September 12: an Automattic spokesperson said Mullenweg is chairman and CEO with the full support of the board, that he was away for "only 33 hours and 20 minutes" and that everyone is back to work. TechCrunch reports Mullenweg described this as roughly his fifth coup experience.
The details: 50 minutes' notice, Slack admin rights, two very different statements and the names that left
Search Engine Journal's September 13 analysis says Mullenweg was given only 50 minutes' notice and that his request for a legal review was denied. SEJ's Roger Montti also contrasts the two official statements: the September 9 one was corporate, third person and three separate sentences, while the September 12 one was informal, personal and a single long sentence that reads as if Mullenweg himself had dictated or authored it. TechCrunch's September 11 report says Mullenweg also pointed to Silver Lake, the private equity firm that is WP Engine's majority shareholder, as part of the plan. On September 14 TechCrunch, citing sources, reported that the three board members who voted for the leave were out: Toni Schneider, Automattic's founding CEO who now runs Bluesky, resigned; Sue Decker, on the board since March 2020, resigned; and General Ann Dunwoody was removed by Mullenweg. CFO Mark Davies and Chief Legal Officer Andy Missan were terminated. Automattic said it was thankful for their contributions and did not comment on specific individuals.
Why it matters: a governance question stays open at the owner of WordPress.com and WooCommerce
Automattic owns WordPress.com and WooCommerce, the hosting and e-commerce products that many websites and online stores run on. For such a company, a CEO placed on leave, back in control two days later via Slack admin rights, and the board members behind the decision gone within a week is not a routine leadership change. Why the board acted is still unknown; TechCrunch wrote on September 14 that what prompted the vote remains unclear. Who remains on the board is not reported either. In the background is the ongoing lawsuit with WP Engine: according to TechCrunch, Mullenweg accuses WP Engine of infringing the WordPress trademark and of not contributing enough engineering hours or money to open-source WordPress, while WP Engine alleged in a court filing that Automattic planned to target other rivals with royalty fees and accused Mullenweg of destroying evidence in apps such as WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram. SEJ refers to an injunction dispute in the case and reported supportive posts from Automattic employees alongside skepticism from the wider WordPress community. None of the sources gives headcount, valuation or financial impact.
What it means for businesses in Türkiye: no Türkiye data in the sources, but real WooCommerce dependence
First the boundary: none of the four sources mentions Türkiye, regional scope, headcount or financial figures; this is not a Türkiye-specific development. Many SMB websites and e-commerce stores in Türkiye run on WordPress and WooCommerce. WordPress itself is open source and community governed, but commercial products such as WooCommerce and WordPress.com hosting depend on a company that just saw this much change at the top in one week while still litigating with WP Engine. That is supplier risk: a reason to review, not to panic. The practical order: first, keep site and store backups somewhere independent of Automattic's infrastructure, and test that they restore. Second, if you host on WordPress.com, know how portable you are; self-hosted WordPress leaves you less exposed to one company's decisions. Third, list the plugins your store depends on; know in advance whether the ones carrying payment, shipping and invoicing flows have alternatives. Fourth, treat this not as a reason to switch hosting or platform but as a chance to measure how resilient your current setup is.
The UNALSOFT view
Our reading: this is not a reason to leave WordPress, it is a reason to review how you depend on it. That is why in our web design projects we recommend the same order to clients: run the site on your own hosting, keep the backup outside Automattic, document the store's critical plugins and know which flows a single supplier decision could stop. We do not know who sits on Automattic's board or why it acted; we do know our clients' sites should keep running regardless.
Sources
TechCrunch, board members and CFO/CLO out after failed ouster (Sept 14) · TechCrunch, Automattic confirms Mullenweg's return, '33 hours 20 minutes' statement (Sept 12) · TechCrunch, Mullenweg's Slack message and admin takeover (Sept 11) · Search Engine Journal, tone analysis of the two official statements (Sept 13)
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