The dispute between WP Engine and WordPress co-founder and Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg has recently reached the pinnacle of web hosting. the service sued the latteraccused him of “abuse of power, usurpation and greed”. a new blog postMullenweg said his opponent’s attacks on him and his company were effective enough that “it’s a good stack [his] Automattic colleagues disagreed [him and his] In response, he created a “buyout package” that offered workers $30,000 or six months’ salary if they resigned, whichever was higher. A total of 159 people, or 8.4 percent of the company, accepted the offer. .
Most of the layoffs came from the company’s Ecosystem/WordPress business, while the rest came from a division that worked on apps like Tumblr and Cloudup. as TechCrunch notes that Mullenweg positively influenced the event and “turned down $126 million in potential work to keep the other 91.6 percent!”
Mullenweg called WP Engine a “cancer for WordPress” and accused the company of infringing WordPress’ trademarks. He said that WP Engine offered the option to “pay a direct license fee or contribute in kind to an open source project”, but the company refused. WP Engine has argued that its use of the WordPress trademark is legal. In response, the WordPress Foundation changed its position trademark policy page Saying that the acronym “WP” isn’t really covered by the WordPress trademark, but please don’t use it “in a way that confuses people.” He publicly called out WP Engine and even said that the company “has never donated to the WordPress Foundation despite making billions in revenue from WordPress.” The WordPress co-founder also banned WP Engine from accessing some WordPress plugins and themes, which broke many of the websites he hosted.
WP Engine accused Mullenweg of demanding eight percent of the company’s monthly revenue as royalties and defamation, defamation, as well as violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and IRS fraud. a statementNeal Katyal, Automattic’s attorney, said he stayed up all night reading the complaint and found it all “baseless.” He added that he is “looking forward to the federal court hearing [the] claim.”
Updated October 4, 2024 at 1:57 PM ET: We’ve updated the post to attribute the quote at the end to Automattic’s attorney.
