Automattic is significantly reducing its contributions to WordPress, announcing that it is matching its WP Engine’s 45 pledged hours to the open source project for the remainder of the legal dispute between the warring companies.
The move, announced on Automattic’s blog yesterday, effectively and temporarily shutters Dotorg, the company’s division dedicated to the WordPress project. As of January 1, 2025, the Dotorg team included 104 people contributing 3,539 hours per week as part of Five for the Future, an initiative encouraging companies to give back 5% of their resources.
Dotorg employees have already stopped working on WordPress core, Gutenberg, Playground, Openverse, and WordPress.org, and are now being redeployed to focus on Automattic’s for-profit products, including WordPress.com, Pressable, WordPress VIP, Jetpack, and WooCommerce.
Automattic blamed WP Engine and its lawsuit, launched last October, for forcing the company to divert “significant time and energy” away from contributing to WordPress.
“Automattic has always been deeply committed to the success of WordPress, dedicating significant resources and talent to its development for almost two decades. However, we’ve observed an imbalance in how contributions to WordPress are distributed across the ecosystem, and it’s time to address this,” the company said in its announcement.
“Additionally, we’re having to spend significant time and money to defend ourselves against the legal attacks started by WP Engine and funded by Silver Lake, a large private equity firm.
“We’ve also faced intense criticism and even personal attacks against a number of Automatticians from members of the ‘community’ who want [CEO] Matt [Mullenweg] and others to step away from the project.
“WP Engine’s historically slim contributions underscore the imbalance that must be addressed for the health of WordPress. We believe in fairness and shared responsibility, and we hope this move encourages greater participation across all organizations that benefit from WordPress.”
Although the announcement is signed off by “the Automattic team,” schema data shows it was authored by WordPress Executive Director Mary Hubbard.
WP Engine launched legal action against Automattic and CEO Matt Mullenweg following the WordPress co-founder’s keynote address at WordCamp US 2024, where he accused WP Engine and its private equity firm, Silver Lake, of profiting off WordPress without contributing enough back. He later accused the hosting company of infringing on WordPress’s trademarks. WP Engine has since expanded its lawsuit to include anti-trust claims in addition to allegations of trademark abuse, attempted extortion, and anti-competitive practices.
Automattic’s announcement notes the company will return to active contributions once its legal battle with WP Engine is over. However, with the next hearing in the court case expected to be held in June 2025 and the potential for the dispute to drag on for at least two years, it’s anyone’s guess how long Automattic may withhold contributions to WordPress.
Impact on the ecosystem
Automattic says its reduced 45 hours of contribution will be spent on security and critical updates.
Historically, Automattic has been the largest contributor to the WordPress project. Five for the Future program updates, last released in May 2024, showed the company’s sponsored contributions accounted for 50% of the total hours pledged by companies.
As of May 2024, 191 organizations had pledged 897 contributors for a total of 7,926 hours. Automattic was, by far, the biggest contributor, sponsoring 109 people for a total of 3,969 hours per week across 21 Make WordPress teams—representing 12% of all sponsored contributors.
With Automattic’s 100+ Dotorg contributors stepping back, Mullenweg is essentially challenging other companies and individuals in the WordPress ecosystem to fill the gap.
As of January 10, the Five for the Future site shows that rtCamp is poised to overtake Automattic’s contributions. The top 10 companies by total hours per week are now:
- rtCamp (21 people, 454 hours)
- Multidots (17 people, 291 hours)
- GoDaddy (46 people, 256 hours)
- Awesome Motive (19 people, 222 hours)
- 10up (20 people, 189 hours)
- Hostinger (24 people, 158 hours)
- Yoast (20 people, 157 hours)
- Elementor (9 people, 125 hours)
- Rocket.net (9 people, 120 hours)
- Google (4 people, 114 hours)
Automattic’s contributions took a hit last October after the company offered a buyout package to those who disagreed with CEO Matt Mullenweg’s handling of the WP Engine dispute. Nearly 80% of the 159 people who left Automattic—including former WordPress Executive Director Josepha Haden Chomphosy—worked for the company’s Dotorg division. As a result, the company’s total hours contributed per week dropped to 3,539.
Non-Automattic contributors across the project are now navigating the logistics of the company’s reduced hours. WordPress Community Team Program Manager Timi Wahalahti said that volunteers learned about Automattic’s plan just 10 hours before it was made public.
“Naturally it increases the load and will cause slowness on every function,” Wahalahti said. “Some few Automattic folks will be around to help with a few mandatory things they are capable of doing, but I guess it’s with reduced hours.”
It’s unclear what the change could mean for WordPress 6.8, the first major release of 2025, scheduled for April 15. A call for release team volunteers closed yesterday, and Mullenweg is not listed as the release lead.
Community reacts
The announcement sent ripples through the WordPress community, which has long relied on Automattic’s leadership and resources. Joost de Valk, who recently called for an end to Mullenweg’s reign as WordPress’s BDFL leader, said he was ready and willing to step into a leadership role during Automattic’s pause — including serving as a release lead.
“As I said in my post before Christmas; I’m here, willing to lead. If that means leading a few releases while the dust settles on all of this, that could be an outcome too. Other than that, we need more clarity on what this means,” de Valk said.
In Post Status Slack, de Valk voiced his support for the Automattic employees affected by the abrupt shift and said he was “a bit baffled about all this” but remained hopeful the community would find a way forward.
WordPress REST API creator Ryan McCue, who was banned from WordPress.org last month, told The Repository: “Matt and Automattic continue to insist that the community step up their contributions while blocking contributors who are actively trying to contribute, like myself. How can other companies commit to contribution when their staff can be arbitrarily blocked with no communication?”
Meanwhile, in a now-deleted post on X, Mullenweg sarcastically rebuked WP Engine CEO Heather Brunner and her approach to business, suggesting Automattic was following her lead in “maximizing shareholder value.”
WP Engine founder Jason Cohen responded in a show of public support for Brunner, posting that she was “by far the best CEO I have ever worked with.”
The Pragmatic Engineer’s Gergely Orosz weighed in as well, saying it was clear the WordPress ecosystem was in turmoil.
“Anyone looking for a stable ecosystem – with players acting rationally – will likely keep steering away from WordPress,” Orosz posted. “No enterprise wants to do business with a supposedly mature company acting with the predictability of a toddler.”
Questions remain
The implications of Automattic’s pullback are still unfolding and raise many questions:
- Will Mullenweg’s personal contributions count towards Automattic’s 45 hours, or will they remain separate (potentially as part of his investment company, Audrey Capital)?
- What does the change mean for Automattic employees in key roles across the project, including Executive Director Mary Hubbard?
- Will the WordPress 6.8 release cycle proceed as planned? What about future releases beyond 6.8?
- How will non-Automattic contributors manage the increased workload?
- How might Automattic’s move impact WordPress’s reputation as a reliable open source platform?
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