The parent company of businesses such as WordPress.com, WooCommerce, and Tumblr, Automattic, has begun laying off employees, and sources familiar with the matter say that they are preparing for more layoffs in the future.
In the past week at least, layoffs have affected the company's communications team, social media team, WordPress.com, as well as its VIP business operations.
These resignations signify further turmoil within Automattic. The company's team is still coming to terms with the impact of the attempt by the board of directors in September this year to remove CEO Matt Mullenweg, which was not successful. That incident ultimately led to a complete reshuffle of the board of directors and resulted in the resignations of other senior executives, including the Chief Financial Officer, the interim Chief Financial Officer, and the Chief Legal Officer.
Automattic, the head of communications, Megan Fox, posted on LinkedIn last week about her resignation, describing it as an "unexpected end" and stating that her position had been "canceled".
Meanwhile, in a report by TechCrunch, it was mentioned that Automattic, the interim Chief Financial Officer, resigned earlier this month, just a few weeks after the board of directors experienced turmoil. On X, Mullenweg posted a message implying that Klaperman might have "felt offended" because the company decided to seek external candidates to fill this position. However, TechCrunch claimed to have heard that Mullenweg had previously requested within the company for Klaperman to reconsider the resignation decision.
According to screenshots viewed by TechCrunch, Mullenweg once shared the personal information of a recently resigned executive within the company's internal Slack forum. The post mentioned health issues related to this person's spouse and claimed that the company did not provide the necessary COBRA medical insurance. Mullenweg stated that as a result, the executive threatened to take legal action. Mullenweg also mentioned that his own fiancée was affected by the same health condition. Some employees told TechCrunch that they were shocked that CEO would share such private personal information in such a context.
Throughout October, TechCrunch learned from various sources that there were further layoffs within the Automattic team, including employees in the marketing and product positions of WordPress.com.
Last week, when asked about the layoffs, Mullenweg stated that the number of employees laid off was not higher than the company's normal level. On Wednesday, when questioned about the continuously increasing total number of layoffs, Mullenweg said that he was "mainly focused on PHP" that day. He posted on X about the security issues with PHP that were impacting the internet, stating that this matter had a higher priority.
According to the About company page, it has a total of 1,397 employees. However, sources familiar with the matter told TechCrunch that the company is likely to carry out layoffs in phases over the coming months, with the aim of improving its revenue figures for the fourth quarter of Automattic before the upcoming debt renegotiations in June next year.
