WordPress hosting service WP Engine sent a cease and desist letter to Automattic on Monday after the company’s CEO Matt Mullenweg last week called WP Engine a “cancer on WordPress.”
The notice asks Automattic and Mullenweg to retract their comments and cease making unfavorable statements about the company.
Today, WP Engine sent a so-called “cease and desist” letter to Automattic, demanding that Automattic and its CEO, Matt Mullenweg, cease and desist from making false, harmful, and defamatory statements about WP Engine in response to misinformation he has spread about WP Engine…
— WP Engine (@wpengine) September 23, 2024
WP Engine, which, like Automattic, commercializes the open source WordPress project, also accused Mullenweg of threatening it ahead of last week’s WordCamp summit.
“Automattic CEO Matthew Mullenweg has threatened to launch what he calls a ‘scorched earth’ campaign against WP Engine both within and outside the WordPress community if WP Engine does not agree to pay his for-profit company Automattic a significant amount of money in time for his keynote speech at the WordCamp US convention on September 20th,” the letter reads.
“When his exorbitant financial demands were not met, Mr. Mullenweg continued to make false allegations and threats to disparage WP Engine to its employees, customers and the world,” the letter added.
The letter further alleges that Automattic last week began asking WP Engine to “pay a significant percentage of its gross revenues, in effect tens of millions of dollars on an ongoing basis,” in license fees for use of its trademarks, including “WordPress.”
WP Engine defended its use of the “WordPress” trademark under fair use law and said it complies with the platform’s guidelines. The letter also included screenshots of Mullenweg’s text messages to WP Engine’s CEO and executives, in which Mullenweg appears to say in his WordCamp talk that he will advocate for WP Engine being barred from WordPress community events if the company doesn’t comply with Automattic’s demands.
Automatik did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Mullenweg, a co-creator of WordPress, last week criticized WP Engine for making profits with little contribution to the open source project, and for disabling key features that make WordPress a powerful platform.
Last week, Mullenweg said in a blog post that WP Engine contributes 47 hours per week to the “Five for the Future” investment pledge, which provides resources for the continued growth of WordPress. By comparison, he said Automattic contributes 3,900 hours per week. While these figures are merely “proxies,” he acknowledged that there is a big difference in contributions, even though the two companies are similar in size and generate roughly $500 million in revenue. (WP Engine disputes this statement in a C&D letter.)
In another blog post, he also said that WP Engine offers customers a “cheap imitation” of WordPress.
It’s worth noting that Automattic invested in WP Engine in 2011, when the company raised $1.2 million in funding. Since then, WP Engine has raised more than $300 million in funding, most of which came from a $250 million investment from private equity firm Silver Lake in 2018.
