Mullenweg says he's back running Automattic, days after ouster

Matt Mullenweg told Automattic staff in Slack that he's back in control of the company, days after its board voted him out as CEO. "The board is back in agreement, and I'm in control of Automattic," he wrote, per TechCrunch's reporting.

Automattic owns WordPress.com, Jetpack, WooCommerce and Tumblr, products that a large share of the web runs commerce and content on. A company that can't say clearly who's in charge is one its enterprise customers have to start asking questions about.

The details are ugly. The board gave Mullenweg 50 minutes' notice before the vote that removed him. It put him on paid leave and installed CFO Mark Davies in his place.

He asked for legal review of the process and was turned down. Then, days later, he told staff the board had flipped back.

Automattic itself hasn't confirmed any of it. No statement, no press release, nothing on record beyond Mullenweg's own Slack post reaching a reporter. The TechCrunch story doesn't say whether Davies is still CFO, or what changed the board's mind, if anything did.

For anyone building on WooCommerce or running a site on Jetpack, the September 11 Slack post is the only public account of who's in charge. The risk is a board and a founder who can't agree on that, settling it through Slack screenshots instead of public statements. Watch for whether Automattic puts anything on the record, or whether this stays a fight conducted through leaks.