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Matt Mullenweg

Summary

Matt Mullenweg is an American programmer from Houston who co-founded WordPress with Mike Little in 2003 as a fork of the b2/cafelog blogging software. In 2005 he founded Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com, Akismet and later WooCommerce and Tumblr. He leads the open-source WordPress project and runs the WordPress.org website.

Web Building Encyclopedia · People · Last reviewed October 22, 2026 · 8 min read

Who Matt Mullenweg is

Matt Mullenweg is an American programmer from Houston, Texas, who co-founded the WordPress software in 2003 and founded the company Automattic in 2005.1 He describes himself as a founding developer of WordPress, and says he was 19 when he started it.1

His work touches the web at three levels. He co-wrote the open-source software, he runs the WordPress.org website that distributes it, and his company runs WordPress.com, a commercial hosting service built on the same code.234

WordPress is now the most widely used content management system (CMS), the kind of program that stores a site’s pages and posts in a database and lets people edit them in a web browser. As of October 22, 2026, W3Techs found it on 39.6% of all websites and on 58.3% of the sites whose CMS it could identify.5 The full history of the software is covered in the WordPress entry; this entry follows Mullenweg’s own part in it.

Houston and b2/cafelog (to 2003)

Mullenweg was born and raised in Houston.1 The journalist Om Malik marked his 40th birthday in a post dated January 11, 2024.6

WordPress’s official history book says he set up his first business while a student at Houston’s High School for the Performing and Visual Arts. He built computers and websites for his music teachers, including his saxophone teacher, David Caceres.7

A forum he set up on Caceres’s website gave him his first experience of PHP, the server-side programming language, through the phpBB forum software. On his own blog he wrote about politics, economics, technology, jazz and photography.7

That blog ran on b2/cafelog, free blogging software created by Michel Valdrighi.78 In January 2003 Mullenweg wrote that it had not been updated for months.9

On January 24, 2003, Mullenweg published a post called “The Blogging Software Dilemma.” He wrote that b2’s main developer “has disappeared” and proposed a fork: a new project that starts from a copy of b2’s code, which its GPL license allowed.9

The next day Mike Little, a developer in Stockport, England, answered in the comments that he would be interested in contributing.97 According to the history book, Little was 22 years older than Mullenweg.7

Building WordPress (2003 to 2005)

On April 1, 2003, Mullenweg created a new branch of b2 on SourceForge, a free code-hosting site. His friend Christine Tremoulet suggested the name WordPress.7

Mullenweg announced the first release in a post titled “WordPress Now Available” on May 27, 2003.10 The project’s history page lists it as version 0.7.11 WordPress.org credits the fork to both founders, Mike Little and Matt Mullenweg.2

Mullenweg has kept crediting the earlier work. In August 2026 he wrote that Valdrighi’s code and design “paved the path for WordPress to follow.”8

Mullenweg later moved to San Francisco and took a job at CNET Networks, which let him keep working on WordPress alongside his day job.112 On March 22, 2005, at a party in San Francisco, he announced a company called WordPress Inc. By his own later account it “never really got off the ground,” and the history book says it petered out.12

He pitched a WordPress-based blogging network to CNET. When CNET turned it down, he decided to build it himself, and WordPress.com opened to sign-ups by invitation in August 2005. The developer Donncha Ó Caoimh built the service on WordPress MU, a multi-user version of the software.13

In late 2005 Mullenweg also launched Akismet, a plugin that checks new comments against a shared database of known spam. Every site that marks a missed comment as spam adds to that database.14

Akismet was bundled with the WordPress 2.0 beta in November 2005.14 WordPress 2.0 itself was released on December 31, 2005.11

Automattic (2005 to today)

Mullenweg left CNET in late 2005 to found Automattic.1 On December 20, 2005, he announced that Automattic.com, until then a placeholder page, now described the team behind WordPress.com and Akismet.4

The company started with four employees: Donncha Ó Caoimh, Ryan Boren, Andy Skelton and Mullenweg. In January 2006 Toni Schneider joined as chief executive.15

Schneider and Mullenweg swapped jobs on January 13, 2014. Mullenweg became CEO and Schneider moved to work on new products.16

Under Mullenweg, Automattic grew mostly by adding products around WordPress:

  • WooCommerce (2015). On May 19, 2015, Mullenweg announced that WooCommerce, the main online-store plugin for WordPress, was joining Automattic. He gave the combined company as about 380 people in 42 countries.17
  • Tumblr (2019). In August 2019 Automattic agreed to buy the blogging service Tumblr from Verizon.18
  • Other products. As of October 22, 2026, Automattic’s company page lists WordPress.com, WooCommerce, Tumblr, Simplenote, Jetpack, Longreads, Day One and Pocket Casts. It reports 1,394 staff and says the company has worked remotely since its founding in 2005.19

Roles in the WordPress project

Mullenweg holds several roles at once, and they are easy to mix up. The table sets out the main ones as each organization describes them.

RoleWhat it covers
Project leadThe core contributor handbook says the project is led by its co-founder and lead developer, Mullenweg.20
Owner of wordpress.orgThe court’s 2024 order, summarizing his own declaration, describes him as the individual owner of the wordpress.org domain and manager of the site.3
WordPress FoundationFounder of the nonprofit that holds the WordPress and WordCamp trademarks, and a member of its board.211
AutomatticFounder; CEO from January 2014; chair of the board.116

Trademarks and the foundation

The WordPress Foundation, a 501(c)(3) charity, was launched in January 2010. Automattic transferred the WordPress trademarks to it that September.2221

As part of the transfer, Automattic kept the right to use the name for WordPress.com but not for future domains, and Mullenweg was granted a license for WordPress.org and WordPress.net, according to the history book.22 The foundation’s trademark policy tells businesses seeking commercial use of the name to contact Automattic, which holds the exclusive license.23

Release leadership

In 2012, between the WordPress 3.4 and 3.5 releases, Mullenweg proposed replacing the project’s small group of lead developers with release leads. Each release lead would have “final say, both over the lead developers, and over Matt” for one release cycle.24

The model was adopted during the WordPress 3.5 cycle.24 Mullenweg has since led some releases himself. The announcement of WordPress 5.0, the December 2018 release that introduced the block editor, says it “was led by Matt Mullenweg,” with co-leads.2511 The announcement of WordPress 6.5, released on April 2, 2024, lists him as release lead.26

Other contributors lead releases too. WordPress 7.0, released on May 20, 2026, lists Matías Ventura as release lead and Mullenweg among the contributors.27

WordCamp and the State of the Word

Mullenweg organized the first WordCamp, a conference about WordPress, in San Francisco in 2006.28 It was held on August 5, 2006, and more than 500 people registered.29

That event also saw his first “State of the Word” talk, which has become the project’s annual keynote.2911 The 2025 edition, on December 2, 2025 in San Francisco, was given by Mary Hubbard, Mullenweg, Matías Ventura and Stephanie Garita Johnson.30

WordCamp Central counts 1,517 WordPress events in 422 cities across 72 countries as of October 22, 2026.28

Five for the Future

On September 30, 2014, Mullenweg proposed that organizations that want to “grow the WordPress pie (and not just their piece of it)” dedicate 5% of their people to work on the core project, in areas such as development, documentation, security, support forums, testing and translation.31 Five for the Future later became the name of the program under which companies pledge contributor hours; Automattic’s January 2025 pledge was counted under it.32

The WP Engine dispute (2024 to 2026)

From September 2024, Mullenweg and Automattic were in a public dispute with WP Engine, a hosting company that specializes in WordPress. What follows are dated facts from each side’s own statements and from court orders. Claims and counterclaims are allegations made by the parties, not findings, unless a court order says otherwise.

  • September 21, 2024. Mullenweg published “WP Engine is not WordPress” on WordPress.org. In it he argued that the company’s branding confused customers and that it needed a trademark license.33
  • September 25, 2024. He announced that WP Engine no longer had free access to WordPress.org’s resources, citing the company’s legal claims and its lack of a trademark license.34
  • October 2, 2024. WP Engine sued Automattic and Mullenweg in federal court. Its claims include antitrust violations, intentional interference, unfair competition and defamation.35 Automattic replied the next day that it denied the allegations, which it called “meritless,” and would fight the case.36
  • October 12, 2024. WordPress.org forked WP Engine’s Advanced Custom Fields plugin into Secure Custom Fields, citing point 18 of its plugin directory guidelines.37
  • December 10, 2024. The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California granted WP Engine a preliminary injunction, a temporary order while the case continues. The court found WP Engine likely to succeed on one claim, intentional interference with contractual relations, and required the defendants to restore WP Engine’s access to wordpress.org as it stood on September 20, 2024.3
  • January 9, 2025. Automattic said it would cut its sponsored contributions to WordPress to about 45 hours a week, citing the lawsuits.32 On May 29, 2025, it said it would return fully to the project.38
  • September 24, 2026. Ruling on motions to dismiss, the court let WP Engine’s antitrust claims proceed and dismissed one computer-fraud claim without leave to amend. Automattic and Mullenweg had filed counterclaims against WP Engine, including trademark claims. The court granted WP Engine’s motion against them only in part. It found that Automattic and Mullenweg were “neither owners nor registrants of the marks at issue,” so it dismissed the trademark counterclaims to the extent they asserted them in their own right.39

In an October 24, 2025 statement, WP Engine called the counterclaims “baseless” and said its use of the WordPress name is fair use.35 Mullenweg’s case against WP Engine is set out in his September 2024 posts.3334 A ruling on motions to dismiss decides which claims may go forward, not who wins. As of the September 24, 2026 order and WP Engine’s statement on it the next day, the latest primary sources we could open, the case had not been decided.3935

Timeline

  1. Court rules on motions to dismiss; WP Engine's antitrust claims proceed and some counterclaims are narrowed39
  2. Mullenweg is one of four presenters of State of the Word 2025 in San Francisco30
  3. Court grants WP Engine a preliminary injunction against Automattic and Mullenweg3
  4. WP Engine sues Automattic and Mullenweg35
  5. Mullenweg publishes "WP Engine is not WordPress"33
  6. WordPress 5.0, led by Mullenweg, introduces the block editor25
  7. Mullenweg announces that WooCommerce is joining Automattic17
  8. Mullenweg proposes Five for the Future31
  9. Mullenweg becomes CEO of Automattic16
  10. Automattic transfers the WordPress trademarks to the WordPress Foundation22
  11. Mullenweg organizes the first WordCamp and gives the first State of the Word29
  12. Mullenweg announces Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com and Akismet4
  13. Mullenweg announces the first WordPress release10
  14. Mullenweg proposes forking b2/cafelog9

What it means for your website

We build on WordPress every week, and Mullenweg’s several roles explain a few things owners run into.

  • Know which WordPress you are using. WordPress.org distributes the open-source software you install on your own hosting; WordPress.com is a hosted service run by Automattic.24 Our WordPress.com vs WordPress.org comparison sets out the trade-offs.
  • Your updates come through WordPress.org. The plugin and theme directories and update services run on wordpress.org, which Mullenweg owns and manages according to his own court declaration, separately from the nonprofit foundation.3 In 2024, a decision there cut one host’s free access to those services until a court ordered it restored.343
  • Check who publishes your plugins. In October 2024 sites with automatic plugin updates were switched from Advanced Custom Fields to the Secure Custom Fields fork.37 After major updates, open the Plugins screen and confirm each plugin’s name and author. See our plugin glossary entry.
  • Keep “WordPress” out of your domain name. The WordPress Foundation’s trademark policy says the name may not be used as part of a domain name, and asks people not to use “WP” in ways that confuse.23 Our domains guide covers choosing a name.
  • Pick a host for its support, not its label. Any host can run WordPress, and our self-hosted WordPress review lists what to ask before you sign up.

See also

References

  1. About. Matt Mullenweg (ma.tt). accessed October 22, 2026.
  2. About WordPress. WordPress.org. accessed October 22, 2026.
  3. Order Re Motion for Preliminary Injunction, WPEngine, Inc. v. Automattic Inc., No. 24-cv-06917-AMO (N.D. Cal.). U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California (copy hosted by DocumentCloud). 2024-12-10. accessed October 22, 2026.
  4. Automattic. Matt Mullenweg (ma.tt). 2005-12-20. accessed October 22, 2026.
  5. Usage statistics and market share of WordPress. W3Techs. 2026-10-22. accessed October 22, 2026.
  6. Happy Birthday Matt. Om Malik, om.co. 2024-01-11. accessed October 22, 2026.
  7. The Blogging Software Dilemma (Milestones: The History of WordPress). WordPress.org. 2015-11. accessed October 22, 2026.
  8. Michel the GOAT. Matt Mullenweg (ma.tt). 2026-08-04. accessed October 22, 2026.
  9. The Blogging Software Dilemma. Matt Mullenweg (ma.tt). 2003-01-24. accessed October 22, 2026.
  10. WordPress Now Available. Matt Mullenweg, WordPress.org News. 2003-05-27. accessed October 22, 2026.
  11. History of WordPress. WordPress.org. accessed October 22, 2026.
  12. WordPress Incorporated (Milestones: The History of WordPress). WordPress.org. 2015-11. accessed October 22, 2026.
  13. WordPress.com (Milestones: The History of WordPress). WordPress.org. 2015-11. accessed October 22, 2026.
  14. Akismet (Milestones: The History of WordPress). WordPress.org. 2015-11. accessed October 22, 2026.
  15. Automattic (Milestones: The History of WordPress). WordPress.org. 2015-11. accessed October 22, 2026.
  16. Toni and Automattic CEO. Matt Mullenweg (ma.tt). 2014-01-13. accessed October 22, 2026.
  17. Woomattic. Matt Mullenweg (ma.tt). 2015-05-19. accessed October 22, 2026.
  18. Tumblr the Day After. Matt Mullenweg (ma.tt). 2019-08-13. accessed October 22, 2026.
  19. About Automattic. Automattic. accessed October 22, 2026.
  20. Project Organization. Core Contributor Handbook, Make WordPress Core. accessed October 22, 2026.
  21. WordPress Foundation. WordPress Foundation. accessed October 22, 2026.
  22. The WordPress Foundation (Milestones: The History of WordPress). WordPress.org. 2015-11. accessed October 22, 2026.
  23. Trademark Policy. WordPress Foundation. accessed October 22, 2026.
  24. The Transition to Release Leads (Milestones: The History of WordPress). WordPress.org. 2015-11. accessed October 22, 2026.
  25. WordPress 5.0 "Bebo". Matt Mullenweg, WordPress.org News. 2018-12-06. accessed October 22, 2026.
  26. WordPress 6.5 "Regina". Matt Mullenweg, WordPress.org News. 2024-04-02. accessed October 22, 2026.
  27. WordPress 7.0 "Armstrong". Matías Ventura, WordPress.org News. 2026-05-20. accessed October 22, 2026.
  28. About WordCamp. WordCamp Central. accessed October 22, 2026.
  29. WordCamp 2006 (Milestones: The History of WordPress). WordPress.org. 2015-11. accessed October 22, 2026.
  30. State of the Word 2025. WordPress.tv. 2025-12-03. accessed October 22, 2026.
  31. Five for the Future. Matt Mullenweg (ma.tt). 2014-09-30. accessed October 22, 2026.
  32. Aligning Automattic's Sponsored Contributions to WordPress. Automattic. 2025-01-09. accessed October 22, 2026.
  33. WP Engine is not WordPress. Matt Mullenweg, WordPress.org News. 2024-09-21. accessed October 22, 2026.
  34. WP Engine is banned from WordPress.org. Matt Mullenweg, WordPress.org News. 2024-09-25. accessed October 22, 2026.
  35. Ensuring Stability and Security: WP Engine's Legal Actions Against Matt Mullenweg and Automattic (updated September 25, 2026). WP Engine. 2026-09-25. accessed October 22, 2026.
  36. Response to WP Engine's Meritless Lawsuit. Automattic. 2024-10-03. accessed October 22, 2026.
  37. Secure Custom Fields. Matt Mullenweg, WordPress.org News. 2024-10-12. accessed October 22, 2026.
  38. Returning to Core. Automattic. 2025-05-29. accessed October 22, 2026.
  39. Order Re Motions to Dismiss, WPEngine, Inc. v. Automattic Inc., No. 24-cv-06917-AMO (N.D. Cal.), Dkt. 410. U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California (via CourtListener RECAP). 2026-09-24. accessed October 22, 2026.

Web Building Encyclopedia. First published October 22, 2026. Last reviewed October 22, 2026. Every fact on this page is linked to a source we opened. Spotted an error? Write to [email protected].