Automattic’s interim CEO and legal chief signed reciprocal severance deals during Mullenweg’s brief ouster
- ID
- 25212
- Status
- summarized
- Published
- 17 Sep 2026, 3:35 AM
- Fetched
- 17 Sep 2026, 3:58 AM
- Provider
- TechCrunch
- Category
- technology
- Original URL
- https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/16/automattics-interim-ceo-and-legal-chief-signed-reciprocal-severance-deals-during-mullenwegs-brief-ouster/
- Source URL
- https://techcrunch.com/feed/
Summary
- Score
- 2.5
- Created
- 17 Sep 2026, 4:00 AM
- Tags
- Audience
- saas_founders
What happened
During a 33-hour window when Automattic's board put Matt Mullenweg on paid leave, interim CEO/CFO Mark Davies and Chief Legal Officer Andy Missan signed each other's severance agreements worth a combined $8.15M in salary and accelerated equity. Mullenweg fired both upon his return, and Automattic's new legal counsel (Susman Godfrey) is now deciding whether to pay out or challenge the deals' validity.
Why it matters
This is corporate governance drama with no direct technical or product impact for builders using WordPress or WooCommerce; it mainly signals continued instability at Automattic, which could matter if you depend on WordPress.com or WooCommerce for revenue-critical infrastructure and want to factor organizational risk into platform decisions.
Discussion angle
Whether platform-dependency risk from vendor internal turmoil should ever change your stack choices, or whether this is pure spectacle with no engineering takeaway.