Web hosting provider WP Engine files lawsuit against Automattic and Matt Mullenweg, co-founder of WordPress, accusing them of extortion and abuse of power. This lawsuit follows weeks of escalating tensions between WP Engine and Mullenweg, who also serves as CEO of Automattic, over issues related to trademark infringement and contributions to the open-source WordPress project.

WP Engine claims that Automattic and Mullenweg have failed to uphold their promises to maintain WordPress as an open-source project, providing developers with the freedom to build, modify, and distribute software without restrictions.

“Matt Mullenweg’s actions in the past ten days have highlighted serious conflicts of interest and governance problems that, if not addressed, could erode the trust within the WordPress community. WP Engine is left with no choice but to pursue legal action to protect its team, agency partners, customers, and the broader WordPress ecosystem,” the company stated.

The lawsuit, filed in a California court, also accuses Mullenweg of having a “long-standing pattern of obfuscating key facts” regarding his control over the WordPress Foundation and WordPress.org.

The Backstory of WP Engine Lawsuit

Mullenweg had previously accused WP Engine of infringing on WordPress and WooCommerce trademarks, referring to them as the “cancer of WordPress.” He also criticized WP Engine’s private equity partner, Silver Lake, claiming they lacked concern for the open-source community.

In response, WP Engine issued a cease-and-desist letter to Mullenweg and Automattic, demanding the withdrawal of these comments. Automattic then responded with its own cease-and-desist letter, accusing WP Engine of trademark violations related to WordPress and WooCommerce.

On September 25, Mullenweg escalated the dispute by banning WP Engine from accessing WordPress.org resources, including plug-ins and themes, effectively preventing WP Engine customers from receiving updates. However, two days later, Mullenweg temporarily lifted the ban, allowing access until October 1.

In a new development, Automattic released a proposed seven-year term sheet that had been sent to WP Engine on September 20. This proposal required WP Engine to either pay 8% of its gross monthly revenue as a royalty for using WordPress and WooCommerce trademarks or commit to contributing employees to work on WordPress core features, equating to 8% of WP Engine’s resources.

WP Engine rejected these terms, which also included a restriction on forking plugins and extensions from Automattic and WooCommerce.