Automattic’s board briefly removed Matt Mullenweg — then, less than 48 hours later, he declared himself back “in control”

This is one of the strangest corporate-governance stories of the week. Automattic’s board put WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg on leave on September 9 and named CFO Mark Davies interim CEO. Mullenweg told employees board members had “conspired” against him.

By Thursday night, he was back in the company Slack declaring that the board was “back in agreement” and that he was again in control. By Friday, Davies’s Slack account had been deactivated. The board had provided employees no further explanation, according to 404 Media.

This follows two years of unusually confrontational management: the WP Engine war, repeated employee buyouts, loyalty tests and internal watermarking intended to identify leaks to journalists.

WordPress infrastructure underpins an enormous portion of the web, yet governance at its central commercial steward appears remarkably dependent on one founder’s personal authority.