Matt Mullenweg returns as CEO of Automattic after an ouster that lasted all of 33 hours and 20 minutes, with the company’s board now apparently back behind him, its composition still unsettled, and a trail of hastily signed severance agreements in its wake.
‘Matt Mullenweg is the chairman and CEO of Automattic, with full support of the board,’ a company spokesperson confirmed via email on Saturday evening, according to TechCrunch. The statement was attributed to spokesperson Megan Fox, sent at 5:05 p.m. on 12 September, per CMSWire. That’s the whole restoration, wrapped up in one corporate non-answer.
The board had voted earlier in the week to put Mullenweg on paid leave. The move caught him off guard: he later posted that he had been given only 50 minutes’ notice of the vote and was denied time to have the resolution reviewed by outside legal counsel, according to TechCrunch’s reporting on the severance arrangements. In the Slack that followed, board member Toni Schneider told employees the board had ‘asked Mark Davies to assume the interim CEO role while Matt is out,’ with Davies and the leadership team available to answer questions, per 404 Media.
Mullenweg did not quietly accept the arrangement. He booted other admins from the company Slack, told employees he was back in control, and posted ‘I’m a pirate now’ alongside some uncharacteristic profanity, uncharacteristic because, as multiple outlets noted, swearing was something Mullenweg famously did not do. When TechCrunch pressed him on whether his claims of being reinstated were legitimate, he promised a blog post. That post turned out to be about buying a houseboat. When asked if he was trolling, he replied: ‘I’m not a troll I’m a pirate, obviously.’
The Severance Paper Trail Behind Mullenweg’s Return as CEO
The speed of the whole episode is one thing. The paperwork is another. During that 33-hour window, interim CEO Mark Davies and Chief Legal Officer Andy Missan each signed the other’s severance agreement, effective 10 September, according to TechCrunch. Davies’ agreement included a clause specifying that being removed from the interim CEO role would not constitute ‘Good Reason’ (the legal term that would allow an executive to resign and claim severance) provided he remained as CFO. In practice, the clause meant Automattic would not owe Davies severance once his brief turn at the top ended.
It is a neat contractual knot: the board engineers a succession, the incoming and outgoing executives insure each other against the costs of failure, and the whole thing unravels before the week is out.
Who Is Left, and Who Has Gone
Davies has since departed, along with Missan. In their wake, Automattic named Jeremy Klaperman, CFO of the company’s WordPress VIP Enterprise unit, as interim CFO, per Yahoo Finance. Mullenweg posted that a candidate for the chief legal officer role had verbally accepted the position. He also stated, ‘I have 100% confidence in our cash and financial position,’ and confirmed the next board meeting was scheduled for 23 September.
Special advisor Stephen Wolfram, creator of Wolfram|Alpha, will remain in his position at Automattic, per Mullenweg.
Then there is Toni Schneider. A founding CEO of Automattic, Schneider was among the board members whose departure is still being reported as possible. He did not respond to requests for comment. His situation has its own layer: Reuters reported in March 2026 that Schneider had been named interim CEO of Bluesky after Jay Graber stepped down, and by 10 July 2026 Schneider had confirmed the role was permanent via a post on his own blog. Automattic and Bluesky share at least one common investor: CNBC reported that True Ventures, where Schneider has been a partner since 2005, holds positions in both companies. A board member with a foot in a competing social platform while his original company implodes around its founder is, at minimum, an interesting governance situation.
Mullenweg noted on X that this was likely the fifth time he had faced what he called a ‘coup.’ Whether the board composition fully settles before that 23 September meeting will tell you more than any spokesperson statement about whether this episode is actually over.
