If you are trying to figure out what really was happening with WP Engine and Automattic ahead Matt Mullenweg’s extortion campaign, as has been the case with so much else, WP Engine has provided a clear explanation and the other side hasn’t. Looking at both sides’ claims, we found that Automattic had not disclosed key information about what was really going on. What it shows is that there was discussion going on, but it wasn’t about supposed trademark infringement or WP Engine not supporting WordPress enough.

Matt Mulleweg has been asked about the timeline of the events and if he has a paper trail. He hasn’t provided it. You can see him just reading off calendar events in one interview.

In a post last week Automattic claimed that the CEO of WP Engine and the Managing Director of Silver Lake, the owner of WP Engine, “had ample time to resolve this conflict” and then went on to mention “meetings we’ve had with WP Engine over the past 20 months.” Automattic’s timeline is odd.

The first entry is in February 2023 and says that “Matt Mullenweg (Automattic CEO) and Heather Brunner (WP Engine CEO) meet for lunch at Eunice Restaurant in Houston.” So the restaurant is mentioned, but no explains what the lunch had to do with this situation.

The next entry isn’t even about a meeting, “Matt and Matías Ventura (WP’s Chief Architect) speak at WP Engine’s DE{CODE} conference.” Matías Ventura is not noted there to be an Automattic employee, but that a specific position is mentioned for him, but notably not some Automattic employees mentioned in the timeline, is important to understanding what really happened here. The timeline doesn’t mention part of what Matt Mullenweg said at that event:

And then also voting with your wallet. So when you support companies like a WP Engine, who don’t just provide a commercial service, but are also part of a wider open source community, you’re saying, hey, I want more of this in the world.

You have to get to February of this year to finally have an entry that mentions an agreement or something else along those lines. So fully a year in to the timeline. The timing turns out to be important to understanding what really happened here. That entry says, “Toni and Heather Brunner discuss trademarks and commercial agreement.” The Toni mentioned there is Toni Schneider, who was Automattic’s interim CEO at the time.

There are then entries in May, June, and September. August has no entries. It could be that is explained by it being summer. Or it could be something they didn’t want to mention. The last meeting in July occurred on July 16, which is important to understanding what really happened here.

Looking over the entire timeline, two things stand out.

The first is despite the claim the Managing Director of Silver Lake “had ample time to resolve this conflict,” he first appears in the timeline on September 17. That was the first meeting since July. That is important to understanding what really happened here.

The second thing that stands out is who and who wasn’t involved on Automattic’s side. Of the people on Automattic’s side that have a title or role listed, none of them are from the legal team. The only time someone from Automattic’s team that runs WordPress for Matt Mullenweg is mentioned is speaking at the conference. That would suggest something else was happening here. There are three other Automattic employees mentioned where their role isn’t mentioned. That is important to understand what really happened as well.

The day after that post was released, WP Engine, through their lawyers, explained in their lawsuit their version of the backstory. They tell a very different story:

Defendants have publicly stated that Automattic had been in discussions with WPE concerning their purported claim that WPE was infringing their trademarks for approximately 18 months leading up to their extortive demands in mid-September 2024. That is false. Rather, earlier in 2024, Automattic had proposed that WPE participate in a WooCommerce “Hosting Partner Program,” which would have involved WPE collaborating to advance WooCommerce as the leading e-commerce engine for the WordPress ecosystem; Automattic’s proposal referenced the inclusion of a trademark license (which WPE did not need under governing trademark law), but made no accusations that WPE was violating any trademarks. Nor did Defendants ask WPE to make any changes to its references to WordPress or WooCommerce on its website. In any event, Automattic unilaterally shut down those discussions in August 2024 without an agreement, informing WPE that Automattic was “reassessing how we will deal with WP Engine.” Thereafter, WPE received no further communications from Defendants concerning trademarks until the above-referenced extortion demand in mid-September, 2024.

So they are saying this started in 2024, which would match with the February 2024 meeting. The description Automattic gave of that is that they “discuss[ed] trademarks and commercial agreement,” which WP Engine fills in additional details for. So it wasn’t about trademark infringement and the agreement wasn’t about getting WP Engine to do more for WordPress.

Their explanation also explains why the Managing Director of Silver Lake got involved in September. Before, there was a minor partnership being discussed. He only got involved once there was extortion involved. The extortion would become very public with Matt Mullenweg’s talk at the WordCamp US on September 20.

Before we dig deeper in to that, the next section of the lawsuit is also relevant:

WPE later learned that in July 2024, Automattic had filed new trademark registration applications, seeking registration for the first time of phrases commonly used in the WordPress ecosystem such as “Managed WordPress” and “Hosted WordPress.”

The date on the trademark filings is July 12, which is four days before meetings stopped until September.

Because WP Engine’s explanation came second, they could have written their lawsuit around Automattic’s claim. But what if there was something that Automattic had neglected to mention that would make it rather obvious what was really going on?

Going back to Automattic’s timeline, the next meeting after the February meeting mentioned before, which occurred in March, is listed as having had the interim CEO “and Paul Maiorana from Automattic” meet with WP Engine. Notably, not mentioned is Paul Maiorana is the CEO of WooCommerce. That is, of course, just one meeting, but what if there are more WooCommerce focused meetings?

In June and July, all the entries involve Steve Deckert:

June 2024

• June 12: Steve Deckert from Automattic meets with Victor Yuan, Carl Hargraves, Ezinne Udezue, and Ramadass Prabhakar from WP Engine.
• June 26: Steve follows up with Victor Yuan. Victor requests a call.

July 2024

• July 3: Steve and Jesse Friedman from Automattic meet via Zoom with Victor Yuan from WP Engine to review the terms a second time.
• July 16: Steve follows up with Victor Yuan, expressing concern about the timeline.

Steve Deckert does business development for WooCommerce. One meeting also involves a Jesse Friedman, who is “Head of http://WP.Cloud and VP of Innovation & Partnership Success on http://Jetpack.com.” So those last four meetings seem obviously unrelated to the WordPress trademark or WP Engine involvement in WordPress.

Putting that all together, WP Engine’s version makes sense as to what was really going on. This also means that other people at Automattic would know that Automattic/Matt Mullenweg is misleading people.

What still is left unanswered if that is what happened is why Automattic switched to trying to extort money from WP Engine. Perhaps the two efforts are unrelated. The other option is that Automattic was trying to boost their profits by getting money from WordPress web hosts and the first effort wasn’t bearing fruit.