Why Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg went to war over WordPress

Decoder with Nilay Patel

Vox Media Podcast Network

Technology, Business

4.3 • 3.2K Ratings

🗓️ 30 June 2025

⏱️ 68 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Today, I’m talking with Matt Mullenweg, the founder and CEO of Automattic and the public face of WordPress. Last year, Matt essentially went to war, publicly and in the courts, against a hosting company called WP Engine, and there’s been significant fallout at Automattic and the broader WordPress community. It’s been a long, drawn-out saga. That said, Matt was willing to come on the show and talk through some of this thinking here, why he made some of the decisions he did, and also what he regrets about how some of this went down. Links: The messy WordPress drama, explained | Verge Celebrating 20 Years of Automattic | Automattic Matt Mullenweg: ‘WordPress.org just belongs to me’ | Verge Automattic offered employees another chance to quit over | Verge WordPress owner Automattic is laying off 16 percent of workers | Verge Tumblr will move all of its blogs to WordPress | Verge Beeper was just acquired by Automattic | Verge Automattic acquires relationship manager Clay | TechCrunch How WordPress and Tumblr are keeping the internet weird | Decoder How to buy a social network, with Tumblr CEO Matt Mullenweg | Decoder Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Ursa Wright. The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	avoiding your unfinished home projects because you're not sure where to start.
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0:13.9	With Thumbtack, you don't have to be a home pro.
0:16.6	You just have to hire one.
0:17.6	You can hire top-rated pros, see price estimates, and read reviews all on the app.
0:23.7	Download today.
0:26.9	Hello and welcome to Decoder.
0:28.2	I'm Neilapitel, editor-in-chief of The Virgin.
0:29.8	Decoder is my show about big ideas and other problems.
0:33.2	Today I'm talking with Matt Mullenweg, the founder and CEO of Automatic, the parent company
0:38.0	of WordPress.com, Tumblr, and a whole host of other products, like the new cross-platform
0:42.4	messaging service, Beeper. This is Matt's third time on Decoder. Back in 2022, we had him on
0:47.8	twice, first to talk about Automatic and WordPress broadly, and then to talk about Tumblr
0:52.5	in the future of social networking. He's back now because Automatic just turned 20, and I and then to talk about Tumblr and the future of social networking.
0:59.1	He's back now because Automatic just turned 20. And I really wanted to talk about what the next 20 years of running one of the most dominant platforms on the web might look like, as changes to
1:03.8	search and AI threaten to change everything in their wake. And various lawsuits threaten to change
1:08.6	the nature of WordPress itself.
1:15.9	And make no mistake, WordPress is one of the most dominant platforms on the web, if not the most dominant.
1:20.2	Something like 43% of websites run on WordPress in one of its many flavors.
1:25.2	That includes the verge. The back end of our website is WordPress hosted by WordPress VIP.
	...

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