WordPress cofounder is paying employees to leave if they disagree with him

Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg offered employees $30,000, or six months of salary (whichever is higher), to leave the company if they didn’t agree with his battle against WP Engine. In an update on Thursday night, Mullenweg said 159 people, making up 8.4 percent of the company, took the offer.

Automattic, which is in charge of WordPress.com and its commercial services, has been involved in a public dispute with WP Engine after Mullenweg called the third-party hosting service a “cancer” to the WordPress community and banned it from accessing WordPress.org.

Mullenweg has claimed WP Engine is violating the WordPress trademark and criticized the company for not giving back to the WordPress open-source project. On Wednesday, WP Engine, which is owned by the private equity company Silver Lake, followed up with a lawsuit that accuses Mullenweg and Automattic of extortion. Automattic called the lawsuit “baseless.”

“Silver Lake and WP Engine’s attacks on me and Automattic, while spurious, have been effective,” Mullenweg wrote. “It became clear a good chunk of my Automattic colleagues disagreed with me and our actions.” Mullenweg gave employees until October 3rd to decide whether they wanted to leave the company. Employees who left aren’t able to be rehired.

The resignations affected the company’s WordPress ecosystem division the most, with 79.2 percent of people who took the offer working in this part of the business, according to Mullenweg. “It was an emotional roller coaster of a week,” Mullenweg writes. “However now, I feel much lighter. I’m grateful and thankful for all the people who took the offer, and even more excited to work with those who turned down $126M to stay.”

WordPress executive director Josepha Haden Chomphosy confirmed a now-deleted post saying she left the company.

Update, October 4th: Clarified Automattic’s offer in the sub-heading.