Automattic offered employees another chance to quit — this time with nine months' severance

Days after 159 people accepted Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg’s offer of a six-month severance package to employees who wanted to leave, the company floated a new offer late on October 16 of a nine-month severance package to anybody who quit immediately. Employees had four hours to decide whether they wanted to take the deal.

In a Slack message seen by TechCrunch, Mullenweg posted that people who accepted the offer would lose access not only to Automattic but also to WordPress.org. This effectively means that people leaving wouldn’t be able to contribute to the open source project — at least under their existing ID. This would also mean they would be effectively banned from the WordPress community. News of the deal was earlier reported by 404 Media.

Apart from being Automattic CEO, Mullenweg also owns and controls WordPress.org open source site.

Mullenweg gave just four hours’ notice and said people who want to accept the offer should DM him, “I resign and would like to take the 9-month buy-out offer.” 

“You don’t have to say any reason or anything else. I will reply ‘Thank you.’ Automattic will accept your resignation, you can keep your office stuff and work laptop. You will lose access to Automattic and Worg,” Mullenweg said.

He said, “I guess some people were sad they missed the last window,” and so presented this new short window.

Automattic didn’t comment on the story by the time of publication. It is not clear if any employees took the new offer. The company’s headcount currently stands at 1,731, according to its web site; a few hours ago, it stood at 1,732.

The WordPress co-founder’s first offer was aimed at people who didn’t align with his views on Automattic’s fight with hosting provider WP Engine. The first batch of people who left Automattic included some top people at the company, including the head of WordPress.com (Automattic’s commercial WordPress hosting arm), Daniel Bachhuber, head of programs and contributor experience Naoko Takano, the Principal architect for AI, Daniel Walmsley, and WordPress.org’s executive director Josepha Haden Chomphosy.

The battle started nearly a month ago after Mullenweg called WP Engine “a cancer to WordPress” and accused the independent firm of not contributing enough to the WordPress open-source project. Over the last few weeks, the fight has involved cease-and-desist letters, Automattic accusing WP engine of violating trademarks, a lawsuit by WP Engine, and WordPress.org blocking WP Engine’s access and taking over a plug-in it had been maintaining.

Earlier this week, TechCrunch reported that Automattic has been preparing to defend its trademarks by involving “nice and not nice” lawyers, according to an internal post published earlier this year by the company’s then-chief legal officer.

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