Matt Mullenweg reversed his board's decision in 33 hours and replaced the directors within three weeks. Holding the votes settled who runs Automattic. It did nothing for the problem every controlling founder eventually has: once the board can't say no, objections reach you some other way, usually later and at a higher price.
On September 9, three directors of Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com, voted to put its founder and chief executive on paid leave and named the chief financial officer interim CEO. Matt Mullenweg voted against. By the evening of September 12 the company was saying he "was away for only 33 hours and 20 minutes." By September 25 the three directors were gone, two by resignation and one removed, along with the CFO and the chief legal officer, and Mullenweg had picked a new board.
That part of the story is over. The part worth a founder's attention started afterward. In early October the interim CFO left. On October 21, TechCrunch reported that layoffs had begun across communications, WordPress.com and the VIP enterprise business, and that the cuts would be spread over several months. Insiders told the publication the timing was meant to strengthen fourth-quarter revenue ahead of a debt renegotiation in June. Mullenweg said the terminations were not above normal numbers.
The founder held the stronger hand
Most of the commentary has treated this as a cautionary tale about founder control. That gets the first half wrong. Mullenweg controls 84% of the vote, a figure he gave publicly in 2024. A board facing a holder of that much voting power can't remove him for long. It can only bet that he will accept the decision. The directors made that bet with, by Mullenweg's account, 50 minutes' notice of the resolution and no time for him to consult independent counsel. The board's reasons have not been made public.
If you sit on a board like that, the lesson is blunt. A process that a controlling shareholder can unwind in a weekend, and that hands him a grievance about fairness on the way, makes the founder stronger. Whatever the directors' concerns were, they are now harder to raise than they were on September 8.
So no, the problem wasn't that a founder held control. Plenty of companies are well run by people who could fire their boards. The problem is what control does to the information that reaches the person who holds it.
Control removes one no, not all of them
A board is one of several places where disagreement gets registered. When it stops working, the others don't go away. They just get less polite, and they arrive later.
Consider who else in a company can still say no to a founder who owns the vote. A finance chief can refuse to sign, and can resign. A general counsel can do the same. Auditors can qualify an opinion. Lenders set terms at every renewal, and a June renegotiation is a negotiation with people who have read the same headlines as everyone else. Senior staff leave, and the best ones leave first because they can. Every one of those is a veto. None of them can be outvoted.
A board that can't fire you is cheap advice. The people who can quit are your real governance, and they charge more.
None of this says Automattic's departures were caused by the board fight. Executives leave for many reasons, and layoffs may be exactly what the business needed. The point is structural. When the formal channel for "no" closes, the informal ones become the only way disagreement gets heard, and each of them costs the company something to use.
He is half right about coups
Mullenweg described the board's move as a coup attempt and, by his count, the fifth of his career. He also argued on X that founders who don't face one every few years aren't hiring strong enough leaders. There is something to that. Strong people push back, and a founder who never meets resistance has probably surrounded himself with agreement.
The other half is what happens after the pushback. If the answer is to replace everyone who pushed, the founder has hired strong leaders and then taught the next group what strength costs. The new Automattic board, two authors and two startup co-founders, may serve the company well. What it can't do is look like a check, because every seat was filled by the person it would be checking. After the fight, Mullenweg told staff that "for purposes of Delaware law, I am the CEO, President, Treasurer, and Secretary." That was legally accurate. It also describes a company where the founder is the only person left whose dissent needs no permission.
Figure 1
Check | What it can still do when you hold the votes | What weakens it | How to keep it working |
|---|---|---|---|
The board | Warn, advise, put concerns on the record | Every director chosen by you; no written list of what needs their approval | Agreed matters you won't decide alone; at least one seat you can't fill or empty by yourself |
Finance chief | Refuse to sign; resign | Reporting only to you; a revolving interim role | A direct line to an independent director; a permanent hire |
General counsel | Advise against; resign | Outside counsel swapped after a dispute | Counsel who reports to the board as well as to you |
Auditors | Qualify an opinion; resign the engagement | Changing firms during a disagreement | Auditor appointment as a matter that needs board approval |
Lenders | Reprice, tighten covenants, decline to renew | Nothing you control; they read the news | Hear about problems from you, before the renewal |
Senior team | Leave, starting with the most employable | Seeing what happened to the last people who objected | A visible case of dissent that was heard and survived |
The vetoes a controlling founder can't outvote. Editorial framework, not a description of Automattic's internal arrangements, which are not public. The same table applies to a private company whose owner holds all the shares.
Owners have this problem worse
It is tempting to read this as a Silicon Valley story about supervoting shares. It applies with more force to the owner of a family business or a founder-held company with an advisory board. Those owners hold 100% of the vote. Their board has never been able to fire them. Most of them have, without noticing, already arrived where Automattic arrived in September: the only people who can stop a bad decision are the ones who would have to quit to do it.
The answer isn't to give up control. It is to build a no you have agreed in advance to respect, while nothing is at stake, because nobody designs good governance in the middle of a fight.
Five commitments to make while things are calm
Write down the decisions you won't make alone. Hiring or firing the finance chief, changing auditors, taking on new debt, transactions with yourself or your family. Sign it.
Keep one seat you can't fill or empty by yourself. A fixed term, or a director named by an investor or lender, is enough.
Give your finance chief and counsel a line around you. A standing meeting with that director, without you in the room.
Agree the process rules both ways. Notice periods for any board action and time to take advice. They protect the founder as much as the company.
After any fight, replace at least one dissenter with another dissenter. Otherwise the next warning comes from a lender.
Mullenweg has said the next six months will determine the next 20 years of Automattic. He may be right, and he has every legal right to run them as he sees fit. Over those months the people still able to object will each make their own call on whether objecting is worth it. A founder who controls the vote only finds out what they decided after they have decided it.
Sources and notes. Board vote of September 9, 2026, the directors involved (Ann Dunwoody, Toni Schneider, Sue Decker), CFO Mark Davies named interim CEO, and Mullenweg's account of 50 minutes' notice and refused time for independent counsel: 404 Media (Samantha Cole, September 9) and TechCrunch. Return and the "33 hours and 20 minutes" statement: TechCrunch (Sarah Perez, September 12), which also reports Mullenweg's description of the episode as likely his fifth "coup." New board (Hugh Howey, Amy Chan, Henry Khachatryan, Krutal Desai), resignations of Schneider and Decker, removal of Dunwoody, departures of the CFO and chief legal officer (per sources), the 84% voting figure (given by Mullenweg at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024), the Delaware-law quote and the X post on coups and hiring: TechCrunch (Sarah Perez, September 25). "The next six months will determine the next 20 years": Mullenweg to TechCrunch, as reported by TechCrunch and Gizmodo (September 27). Interim CFO's departure, layoffs, insiders' account of the June debt renegotiation, Mullenweg's "not above its normal numbers" comment and the company's statement: TechCrunch (Sarah Perez, October 21). The board's reasons for the September 9 vote have not been made public. Figure 1 is an editorial framework. Corrections welcome.
