WordPress Co-Founder Strikes Back, Deactivates Accounts of Fork Supporters

Matt Mullenweg, CEO of Automattic and co-founder of WordPress, has deactivated the accounts of several prominent members of the WordPress.org community. This move targets individuals who have been pushing for the creation of a new fork of the WordPress open-source project.

The action follows months of escalating tension within the community. The conflict began in September 2024 when Mullenweg criticized WP Engine for profiting from WordPress without contributing enough to the ecosystem.

This sparked a series of legal disputes, including WP Engine suing Automattic for denying access to critical WordPress resources. A court later ruled in favor of WP Engine, ordering that their access be restored.

Amid these tensions, Yoast creator Joost de Valk shared his vision for a new WordPress era, suggesting the creation of “federated and independent repositories.”

This proposal hinted at the possibility of a WordPress fork, a version of the open-source project that evolves independently with its own community, while still being able to merge contributions back into the original project.

In response to Automattic’s announcement to scale back its contributions to the WordPress core project, de Valk expressed his readiness to lead the next release of WordPress. Karim Marucchi, CEO of Crowd Favorite, also showed support, stating that his team is prepared to contribute.

However, Mullenweg’s decision to deactivate de Valk’s and Marucchi’s accounts, along with those of Se Reed, Heather Burns, and Morten Rand-Hendriksen, has raised eyebrows. While Mullenweg described the deactivation as a way to give their independent efforts a “push,” the exact reasons behind the actions remain unclear.

Reed leads the WP Community Collective, a newly formed non-profit, and Burns was reportedly surprised by her account deactivation, having not been involved with the project since 2020.

Rand-Hendriksen speculated on Bluesky that he and Burns were targeted for their past objections to WordPress governance.

This move has further fueled the growing divide in the WordPress community, with many questioning the future of the open-source project under Mullenweg’s leadership.