The new WordPress Executive Director recently just resigned from her post as the Head of TikTok Americas, Governance and Experience. She worked as the Head from January 2023 until her subsequent resignation to take up her new post. But this is not Hubbard’s first time working at WordPress. She worked as the Chief Product Officer for WordPress.com from January 2012 till March 2023.

Mary Hubbard has an extensive working history as presented on her LinkedIn profile. She worked as the Chief Product Officer at TruRating from 2017 till 2020. The WordPress Executive Director also has worked at companies such as eBay, Walmart eCommerce, Assurant, and VBZ Inc. Her educational background includes International Business and Chinese at California State University and Language Business Studies and International Business at Hong Kong Baptist University.

Mary Hubbard: Reception of the news of her appointment as Executive Director

The overall reception to Mary Hubbard’s appointment as WordPress Executive Director has been met with positivity welcoming her on board. However, there are still tons of comments from the online community expressing their disappointment or concerns over the entire WordPress-WP Engine drama.

The feud between the two companies snowballed into a legal lawsuit filed by WP Engine accusing WordPress of extortion. Mullenweg has offered up a generous severance package for employees who want to resign. Employees who wanted to leave were offered $30,000 or six months of pay. Employees could choose whichever amount was higher.

Josepha Haden Chomphosy resigned from her position as Executive Director of WordPress very recently but there are no details about the reasons for her resignation.

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WordPress Executive Director Formally Resigns

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Image Credits: Photo by Erik Mclean on Unplash

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Chomphosy uploaded a notice on her blog, officially announcing her resignation as the WordPress Executive Director. Her blog expresses her strong belief in the ‘global community of contributors’. She also believes there is a long way to go in attaining a self-sustaining future of open source. The former Executive Director has also acknowledged the need for more opportunities that open sources can provide.

Co-founder of WordPress and CEO of Automattic, Matt Mullenweg confirmed Chomphosy’s resignation on October 2. Mullenweg had posted on X that he had spoken to Chomphosy and confirmed she was no longer working with the company. However, the post was later deleted as Chomphosy posted her response the very next day. In her post, she apologised for the delivery of the news and said that it was not how she expected it to be announced.

WordPress’ Executive Director resigned during the feud

The former WordPress Executive Director announced her resignation at the peak of the WordPress-WP Engine drama. This entire feud by started by Matt Mullenweg and later snowballed into an entire lawsuit by WP Engine accusing the Automattic CEO of extortion and libel.

It is up in the air regarding the reasons behind Chomphosy’s resignation. Although her resignation came in during the whole feud between the two companies, there is no confirmation that she resigned because of the feud. In her resignation announcement, Chomphosy did not make any mention of the fiasco either.

Mullenweg has also uploaded a blog post with an exit offer for Automattic employees who did not agree with Mullenweg. Over 8% of employees had exited and they were compensated with a severance package of $30,000 or six months of salary.

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Matt Mullenweg Critizes WP Engine at WordCamp US 2024

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The Automattic CEO started this public battle with WP Engine as he believed WP Engine was violating the WordPress trademarks. Mullenweg even went so far as to call WP Engine a ‘cancer’ to WordPress. Shortly after, more fuel was added to the fire when WordPress announced that it was blocking WP Engine. The hosting provider was thus banned from using its free resources such as plugins and themes. This resulted in a huge backlash from WP Engine customers. These users were left vulnerable due to the discontinuation of crucial security updates from WordPress. The ban was later lifted temporarily until the 1st of October. Automattic also asked WP Engine to pay them 8% of their gross monthly revenue if they want to continue using the WooCommerce and WordPress trademarks. However, WordPress has not accepted these terms by Automattic.

WP Engine had even sent WordPress a cease-and-desist letter demanding that Mullenweg retract his statements about WP Engine. However, Automattic responded with their cease-and-desist letter where they accused WP Engine of infringing on the WooCommerce and WordPress trademarks.

WP Engine Sues Matt Mullenweg: More on this issue

WP Engine has accused Mullenweg of allegedly extorting money from them. As WP Engine sues Matt Mullenweg, the hosting provider also accused the Automattic CEO of abusing his power and being greedy.

The hosting provider is seeking to stop Mullenweg and Automattic from continuing on this tirade against WP Engine and the WordPress community as a whole. The lawsuit has also accused Mullenweg of having an alleged history of blurring the real facts.

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Matt Mullenweg Critizes WP Engine at WordCamp US 2024

WordPress Lifts Ban On WP Engine Temporarily

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The ban on WP Engine prevented its customers from using WordPress’ free resources such as themes and plug-ins. The prevention of updates left the sites vulnerable and put them at security risk. This move by WordPress was met with criticism in online spaces. WP Engine customers also took to social media to share security concerns brought by the ban.

Matt Mullenweg has made a few statements following the backlash. Mullenweg criticised Silver Lake for this feud. For context, Silver Lake is the private equity firm that owns WP Engine. In an official blog post, Mullenweg acknowledges the frustration coming from WP Engine customers. He also says that Silver Laks’s commercial decisions affected WordPress negatively.

WordPress Lifts Ban on WP Engine: More on this feud

This feud started when Mullenweg made a few comments criticising WP Engine at the WordCamp event. He then posted two more blog posts criticizing WP Engine further, one of which announced the ban on WP Engine. In the first blog post, Mullenweg called WP Engine a ‘cancer’ to WordPress. WP Engine has been allegedly lacking in its contributions towards WordPress despite using its free resources. Furthermore, WP Engine has also been accused of profiting off of the WP Engine and WordPress confusion, which has been emphasized over and over by Mullenweg. In fact, Mullenweg has reiterated a few times that ‘WP Engine is not WordPress’.

After the scathing comments and subsequent ban by WordPress, WP Engine sent Automattic a cease-and-desist letter. The hosting provider demanded for Mullenweg to retract his previous statements. In a turn of events, Automattic sent over their cease-and-desist letter to WP Engine and accused them of infringing on WordPress’ trademark.

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Matt Mullenweg Critizes WP Engine at WordCamp US 2024

WordPress.org Blocks WP Engine

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In a blog post, Matt Mullenweg, co-founder of WordPress and CEO of Automattic has alleged that WP Engine aims to control the WordPress experience. Sites from WordPress do not get hacked as often as they used to. This is due to WordPress working with hosts to stop ‘vulnerabilities at the network layer. Mullenweg continues by saying that the hosting provider will have to figure out a way to recreate WordPress’ security research by themselves. He also questions the logic of why WordPress has to give free services to WP Engine considering their attacks on WordPress.

The Automattic CEO says WP Engine can proceed with offering customers a bastardized version of WordPress’ GPL code. He ends the blog posts by emphasising that WP Engine is not WordPress.

As WordPress.org blocks WP Engine, loads of WP Engine users have taken to social media to voice their concerns. WP Engine customers have been left vulnerable due to the absence of security updates. The hosting provider has acknowledged this issue and ensured its customers that there is currently no impact regarding security, performance and other concerns. WP Engine has responded to Mullenweg’s claims stating that the Automaacttic CEO interfered with operations within WP Engine.

WordPress.org Blocks WP Engine: Background on this feud

Earlier this week, Mullenweg criticised WP Engine at the WordCamp US 2024 event. After his comments at the event, he later went on to publish a blog post with even more scathing comments. Mullenweg claimed that WP Engine profited off WordPress since 2010 and disabled most of the features that made WordPress what it is.

In his blog post, Mullenweg also called WP Engine a ‘cancer’ to WordPress. Mullenweg stated that WP Engine turned off the revision system. Furthermore, the hosting service has also been alleged to profit from the confusion that exists between WordPress and WP Engine. Mullegnweg has stressed over and over that WordPress is not affiliated with WP Engine by any means.

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Matt Mullenweg Critizes WP Engine at WordCamp US 2024.

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WordPress co-founder, Matt Mullenweg criticised WP Engine at the WordCamp US 2024 event, and his comments against the competing firm have subsequently received backlash.

Mullenweg, also the CEO of Automattic, clarified his opinions about WP Engine. He claims WP Engine has profited off of WordPress since 2010. He has also maintained that key WordPress features have been disabled, features which drove WordPress to the top. Mullenweg made these critical statements during WordCamp US 2024 held in Portland, Oregon. This event is a conference set up by the WordPress community to get together and share ideas.

The WordPress co-founder has claimed that WP Engine has benefited from the confusion between the non-existent connection between WordPress and WP Engine. Many have assumed that WP Engine is under WordPress as the company makes it seem like they are offering customers a product of WordPress. Taking an example from his personal life, Mullenweg says his mother had confused WP Engine being an official WordPress service.

Matt Mullenweg and his recently published blog post

After the first day of the conference concluded, Matt Mullenweg wrote a blog post going on a detailed tirade about WP Engine. In this blog post, he also went on record calling WP Engine a ‘cancer’ to WordPress. He has also extended his criticism towards Silver Lake, the private equity firm that controls the WP engine. He took the comparison between WP Engine and Automattic, stating that the former contributed only 40 hours a week. Meanwhile, the smaller-sized Automattic contributed back 3,915 hours weekly. Furthermore, he alleges that WP Engine has turned off the revision system which helped in correcting mistakes. So whatever mistake a user makes cannot be rectified.

Matt Mullenweg has advised WP Engine customers to get at least 3 revisions to be turned on. This could protect the customer by preventing any loss of anything important.

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