Automattic Board Attempts to Remove Matt Mullenweg, Discovers He’s a Must-Use WordPress Plugin
CEO successfully restores himself from backup after 33-hour outage; three board members permanently deleted.
SAN FRANCISCO, CA — In what industry experts are calling the fastest failed software update in corporate history, Automattic’s board of directors attempted to deactivate CEO Matt Mullenweg, only to discover that the WordPress co-founder had administrator privileges they apparently forgot to revoke.
The incident began September 9, when Automattic’s board voted to place Mullenweg on paid leave shortly after his return from Burning Man, where he had reportedly spent several days experiencing what it feels like to run an organization with absolutely no rules.
Unfortunately for the board, their attempted leadership change appears to have been deployed directly to production without first testing it in a staging environment.
For approximately 33 hours, Automattic briefly operated under the radical assumption that a board of directors was authorized to direct something.
That assumption has since been patched.
Mullenweg returned to his position just over a day later, accompanied by LL Cool J’s “Mama Said Knock You Out,” while three directors, the CFO, and the chief legal officer exited the company.
WordPress developers immediately recognized the sequence of events.
“This is a classic permissions issue,” explained one fictional systems administrator. “The board thought they had full administrative access, but it turns out they were just Editors. Matt is the Super Admin, the hosting provider, and possibly the database itself.”
Sources familiar with WordPress architecture suggested Mullenweg may have been installed as a must-use plugin, meaning he cannot be deactivated through the standard dashboard.
The board reportedly received the following error:
“Sorry, you are not allowed to perform this action.”
The incident has raised fresh questions about corporate governance, including whether Automattic’s board is an independent oversight body or simply a decorative WordPress widget.
Employees were reassured that operations would continue normally, although several reportedly noticed that the company’s organizational chart had been replaced with a single large button reading “Update Matt.”
Technology analysts praised the company’s remarkable disaster recovery capabilities, noting that most organizations require days to restore critical systems after a catastrophic failure.
Automattic managed to restore its original leadership in just 33 hours while simultaneously removing several unnecessary dependencies.
At press time, the former directors were reportedly attempting to submit a support ticket, but the contact form kept returning:
“There has been a critical error on this website.”
Automattic has advised users to clear their cache, disable conflicting board members, and never attempt a major update without a full backup.