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Matt Mullenweg—Mullenweg deactivated WordPress community accounts of contributors planning a fork

In January 2025, Mullenweg deactivated WordPress.org accounts of several community members, including two planning to fork WordPress and the CEO of the WP Community Collective nonprofit. He also dissolved the WordPress sustainability team after learning it existed. Mullenweg acknowledged the lawsuits 'could potentially bankrupt me or force the closure of WordPress.org.'

Scoring Impact

TopicDirectionRelevanceContribution
Corporate Governance-againstprimary-1.00
Open Source-againstprimary-1.00
Overall incident score =-0.885

Score = avg(topic contributions) × significance (high ×1.5) × confidence (0.59)

Evidence (1 signal)

Confirms Policy Change Jan 11, 2025 verified

Mullenweg deactivated WordPress contributor accounts and dissolved sustainability team

Mullenweg deactivated WordPress.org accounts of contributors planning a fork, including the CEO of the WP Community Collective nonprofit. He also dissolved the WordPress sustainability team after learning it existed, prompting Kara Swisher to call it 'a pathetic turn.'

TechCrunch(opens in new tab),The Register(opens in new tab)

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