In a controversial move, WordPress co-creator and Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg has deactivated the WordPress.org accounts of several prominent community members, including Joost de Valk and Karim Marucchi, amid growing tensions over the platform's governance.
The deactivations came after de Valk, creator of the popular Yoast SEO plugin, published his vision for WordPress's future that included proposals for "federated and independent repositories." While de Valk and Marucchi had expressed willingness to lead the next WordPress release, they maintain they never planned to fork the project.
Mullenweg claimed the account deactivations would give their "independent effort the push it needs to get off the ground." He also deactivated accounts belonging to Sé Reed, Heather Burns, and Morten Rand-Hendriksen, with limited explanation provided.
The tensions follow a recent dispute between WordPress and WP Engine, a hosting company that was temporarily banned from accessing key WordPress resources before court intervention restored their access. Earlier this week, Automattic announced reducing its core WordPress contributions to match WP Engine's level of involvement.
While account deactivation prevents direct contribution through WordPress.org channels, the open-source nature of the project means the code remains accessible via GitHub. Mullenweg expressed openness to potential forks of the project, suggesting they could even merge beneficial changes back into WordPress.
In response to the deactivations, Burns noted she hadn't been involved with the project since 2020, while Rand-Hendriksen suggested on Bluesky that the actions were related to previous criticisms of WordPress governance dating back to 2017.
The incident highlights ongoing debates about leadership, governance, and community contribution within one of the world's most widely-used content management systems.