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Image by Amidst the public dispute of WP Engine vs WordPress over trademarks, 159 employees (8.4% of the company) have dropped out of Automattic after accepting a severance package worth $30,000 or six months’ salary offered by CEO Matt Mullenweg for those who disagreed with how he’s handling the situation. This was stated in a blog post on Thursday, October 3.
“It was an emotional roller coaster of a week. The day you hire someone, you aren’t expecting them to resign or be fired, you’re hoping for a long and mutually beneficial relationship. Every resignation stings a bit,” Mullenweg stated.
Nearly 80% of those who left the company were from the WordPress division—including Daniel Bachuber, head of WordPress.com), Naoko Takano, head of programs, and Daniel Walmsley, their Principal architect for AI. The rest then came from Automattic’s Cosmos businesses.
“We decided to design the most generous buy-out package possible… 159 people took the offer… the other 91.6% gave up $126M of potential severance to stay!” added the Automattic CEO.
This follows the lawsuit in which WP Engine sued Mullenweg for abuse of power, extortion, and conflicts of interest—wherein Automattic then denied all the claims, calling the lawsuit “meritless.”
