The feud between WP Engine and WordPress co-founder and Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg recently came to a head with the web hosting service suing the latter for alleged “abuse of power, extortion, and greed.” did. Mullenweg said in a new blog post that his adversaries’ attacks on him and his company were effective enough that “a significant portion of (his) Automatic colleagues disagreed with (him and his) actions.” ” he said. In response, he created a “buyout package” that would provide employees with the greater of $30,000 or six months’ salary if they left the company. 159 people, or 8.4% of the company, received job offers.
Most of the departed employees came from the company’s ecosystem/WordPress business, with the remainder coming from the division that develops apps like Tumblr and Cloudup. As TechCrunch notes, Mullenweg took the event positively, exclaiming, “The other 91.6% gave up $126 million in severance and stayed!”
Mullenweg called WP Engine “the cancer for WordPress” and accused the company of infringing on WordPress trademarks. He said he offered WP Engine the option to “pay a license fee directly or make an in-kind donation to an open source project,” but the company declined. WP Engine argued that its use of the WordPress trademark is legal. In response, the WordPress Foundation changed its trademark policy page to say that while the “WP” abbreviation is indeed not covered by the WordPress trademark, it should not be used “in a way that confuses people.” . The company pointedly singled out WP Engine and even said that the company has “never donated to the WordPress Foundation, despite generating billions of dollars in revenue from WordPress.” The co-founders of WordPress also prohibited WP Engine from accessing some of WordPress’s plugins and themes, which caused many websites hosted by WP Engine to stop working.
WP Engine accused Mullenweg of defamation, slander, computer fraud and abuse and IRS fraud for allegedly demanding 8% of the company’s monthly revenue in royalties. Neil Katyal, an attorney for Automatic, said in a statement that he stayed up all night reading the complaint and felt it was all “worthless.” He added that he “looks forward to the federal court’s review of the case.”
Updated October 4, 2024, 1:57 PM ET: Post updated to say the last quote was from Automattic’s attorney.
