The Executive Directory of WordPress.org Is an Employee of Automattic
On Monday, the new Executive Directory of WordPress.org started on the job. The position raises serious question about what is going on with WordPress. The WordPress post by Matt Mullenweg announcing they were going to be taking on the role made it sound like they were going to be employed by WordPress.org:
We’re proud to announce that Mary Hubbard (@4thhubbard) has resigned as the Head of TikTok Americas, Governance and Experience, and will be starting as the next Executive Director of WordPress.org on October 21st!
Yet the Twitter account of Automattic, where Matt Mullenweg is the CEO, posted “Welcome BACK to Automattic, Mary!!!” in response to an announcement tweet from WordPress. The announcement tweet made it sound like they were working for WordPress:
We’re proud to announce that Mary Hubbard has resigned as the Head of @tiktok_us, Governance and Experience, and will be starting our next Executive Director on October 21st!
The announcement post did mention her involvement with Automattic, but in the past tense:
Mary previously worked at Automattic from 2020 to 2023, and was the Chief Product Officer for WordPress.com, so she has deep knowledge of WordPress and expertise across business, product, marketplaces, program management, and governance.
This is second time that Matt Mullenweg has announced an Executive Director. The first one was announced in 2019. They were also an Automattic employee, but that wasn’t disclosed then either. The previous was referred to as the Executive Directory of WordPress, not WordPress.org. It is unclear if that has any significance.
What makes that all the more confusing is that the day after they came in to the job, lawyers representing Matt Mullenweg and Automattic claimed that “WordPress.org is not WordPress,” “WordPress.org is not Automattic,” and that WordPress.org “is not controlled by” Automattic. They also stated that “WordPress.org is Mr. Mullenweg’s responsibility.” If true, that would suggest that Matt Mullenweg is using resources of a company that he is only a minority shareholder in, Automattic, for his personal benefit.
Putting that all together you have a blurring of lines between the WordPress open source project, WordPress.org, and Automattic. Separately, board meeting minutes from the WordPress Foundation suggested that the Executive Director was connected with that. The lawyers also claimed that WordPress.org is not the WordPress Foundation and “is not controlled by” them.
While the announcement post starts out “We’re,” there is no mention of anyone else in the post and nothing to suggest that anyone other than Matt Mullenweg was involved in the selection process.