WordPress co-founder deactivates accounts of several contributor members: Here's why
What's the story
Matt Mullenweg, the CEO of Automattic and co-creator of WordPress, has deactivated the accounts of several members from the WordPress.org community.
The move was mainly aimed at those spearheading an effort to create a new fork of the open source WordPress project.
It comes after months of rising tension in the community dating back to September 2024, when Mullenweg slammed WP Engine for profiteering without enough contribution.
Tensions rise
Legal dispute and community response
The conflict escalated when WP Engine, a commercial hosting company built on WordPress, was denied access to critical WordPress resources.
This resulted in a lawsuit and a court order directing WordPress to restore access.
Amid all this, notable voices from the wider WordPress community have spoken up.
Yoast creator Joost de Valk recently shared his "vision for a new WordPress era," hinting at a fork in the form of "federated and independent repositories."
Fork support
Mullenweg's stance on new WordPress fork
Mullenweg has openly backed the concept of a new WordPress fork.
A fork is when someone takes the code from an open source project and makes a copy, which can then evolve independently with its own contributor community.
These contributions can be merged back into the original project.
This week, Automattic announced plans to cut its contribution to the core WordPress open source project, matching WP Engine's contribution level in weekly hours.
Community commitment
De Valk and Marucchi's commitment to WordPress
In response to Automattic's announcement, de Valk said he was ready to lead the next release of WordPress.
Karim Marucchi, CEO of web consulting firm Crowd Favorite, echoed the sentiment saying his "team stands ready."
Together, de Valk and Marucchi spend about 10 hours a week on different aspects of the WordPress open source project.
However, Mullenweg deactivated their WordPress.org accounts in a move he described as giving their independent effort the "push it needs to get off the ground."
Account deactivation
Mullenweg deactivates additional accounts
Along with de Valk and Marucchi, Mullenweg also deactivated the accounts of three others: Se Reed, Heather Burns, and Morten Rand-Hendriksen.
The reasons behind these actions weren't clearly stated.
Reed is the President and CEO of a newly formed non-profit, WP Community Collective. Burns was surprised at her account deactivation as she hadn't been involved in the project since 2020.
Rand-Hendriksen suggested on Bluesky that he and Burns were targeted for their past objections to governance at WordPress.