The flamboyant CEO of Automattic, which controls WordPress, was fired by the board last Thursday, causing him to go on leave. He used access to his system to delete the accounts of the acting CEO and others, an action that could have resulted in the dismissal of most employees. Instead, he was fully reinstated as CEO a couple of days later.
It’s not hard to compare this to the OpenAI saga almost three years ago, when a frighteningly similar series of events occurred. The board fired the CEO for repeatedly lying to him. A few days later the council changed its mind.
A weaker historical comparison is with Steve Jobs, who was removed as Apple CEO but later returned. But at least Jobs had the decency to wait a few years until he built and launched NeXT.
To be fair, boards of directors have often been criticized for being puppets of the CEO, who often has a lot to say about who sits on the board. But this criticism does not apply to either OpenAI’s first board or Automattic’s first board.
A few years ago, I was involved in a venture capital-funded startup and we were in the process of forming a board of directors. I was talking to someone who was going to be the chairman of the board of directors, and he needed candidates for the position of secretary of the board of directors, which is usually an attorney. This role is expected to be filled by a lawyer who looks after the board of directors, as opposed to the company’s general counsel, who reports to the CEO and only cares about the company.
The Chairman said we need someone we can trust. I had the ideal candidate in mind until I dug deeper and discovered that there was a huge gap between “trustworthy” and “someone we can trust.”
I envisioned a man of integrity and integrity who would take his responsibilities seriously and tell the board the truth, no matter the consequences. It turns out that’s exactly what the chair did. No want.
He needed someone who would vote with us, regardless of his legal opinion. He didn’t really want to be trusted. He wanted blind and unconditional devotion. (This business, thank God, was never launched.)
But that seems to be what CEOs want now, and it undermines the whole point of having an independent board of directors. Besides deciding whether to accept an acquisition offer, the most important decision of any technology board is the hiring and firing of the CEO.
What does it mean when the board of directors makes such a decision for a seemingly legitimate business reason and then reverses it within days?
In the case of Automattic, this does not look very good. The Council said absolutely nothing about Why he forced the CEO to quit, making his weekend cancellation even more confusing.
When Automattic emailed reporters Thursday about the CEO’s departure, the messages were cryptic: “Matt Mullenweg is currently on leave from Automattic. Mark Davis, Automattic’s CFO, will lead the company as interim CEO. The board has full confidence in Mark’s leadership and the team’s ability to execute on company priorities.”
The next thing we heard was an equally cryptic message sent on Saturday afternoon: “Matt Mullenweg is the Chairman and CEO of Automattic, with the full support of the board of directors, and if you do an Internet search, you will see that many senior executives and automation experts also support him.”
Hm? We then asked for clarification of what happened and why. On Sunday at 2:26 a.m. ET, the media team emailed: “Matt and Automattic management have the utmost respect for everyone involved. While we can’t comment on specific individuals, we are grateful for their contributions to Automattic and its mission, and we remain excited about what’s next with Matt at the helm. Matt was only gone for 33 hours and 20 minutes—now we’re back to work.”
My proposal: the board of directors’ decision to hire or fire a CEO should be publicly reasoned. The same should happen with hiring decisions. Or, in this case, the reversal of the decision on compulsory leave.
If the board is going to take the extreme step of releasing the CEO, it needs to explain why. This may be vague in some situations (such as a “personnel situation involving substantiated sexual assault”), but the board needs to provide some reason. This should happen, at least the reversal is also explained.
Further reading:
- Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg Is Missing: Does This Mean Long-Term Viability or Liability for WordPress Customers?
- Matt Mullenweg: Reducing WordPress Developer Time May or May Not Slow Innovation
- WordPress.org Statement Threatens Possible Closure for All of 2025
- About this fight between the co-founder of WordPress and WP Engine…
- Twelfth of Automattic employees quit due to spat between WordPress and WP Engine
- The lawsuit between WordPress.org and WP Engine is getting ugly
