“Dude you’re my hero ❤
And I’m sorry for all this stuff that’s happened to you, it’s awful. I genuinely admire how well you’ve handled all this, while moderating this sub too.”
Claims For Relief
Section D of the filing lists fifteen claims, among them he cites that Mullenweg’s retaliatory actions disrupted existing client contracts and the ability to cultivate new clients. It also describes attempted extortion, libel and trade libel among the many other claims.
Three of the claims made in the motion:
“1. Intentional Interference with Contractual Relations
Defendant Matt Mullenweg’s actions, including banning Michael Willman from the Make.WordPress.org Slack workspace and retaliating against him, disrupted existing contractual relationships. Some specific examples are the $14,500 website development contract that was canceled due to Michael Willman being banned from WordPress.org, the remainder of another contract with Trellis that was lost valued at $5,526.35, and an ongoing relationship with Trellis that included active retainers valued at $4,700 per month in addition to regular ad-hoc work, the combination of which generated $77,638.65 in invoices in 2024.
2. Intentional Interference with Prospective Economic Relations
By targeting and banning Michael Willman from essential WordPress platforms, Defendants interfered with potential business opportunities. The absence of new website development projects, loss of existing relationships and the unease expressed by clients about the WordPress ecosystem are direct results of these retaliatory actions.
4. Attempted Extortion
During discussions, Matt Mullenweg offered to refer clients to Michael Willman’s business on the condition that he cease working with WP Engine and join Automattic’s affiliate program. This constitutes coercive conduct aimed at disrupting Michael Willman’s business relationships.
6. Libel
Matt Mullenweg publicly claimed that Michael Willman made threats of physical violence, a statement that is objectively false and defamatory. This damaged Michael Willman’s reputation within the WordPress community and beyond.
7. Trade Libel
Public statements by Matt Mullenweg disparaged Michael Willman’s professional services and integrity, causing harm to his business relationships and reputation.”
Possible Outcome Of New Court Motion
The motion to intervene contains serious allegations of abuse of authority by the single most influential person in the open-source WordPress project, a worldwide ecosystem of developers, business users, publishers, plugin and theme developers and thousands of volunteers around the world who contribute to the development of the WordPress content management software.
The filing not only seeks restitution, it also asks the court for changes to the WordPress governance to remove Matt Mullenweg from his position of power at WordPress.
Read The Reddit Post And Legal Document
A link to the legal document is posted on a Reddit discussion about the filing:
Motion to Intervene & Motion for Contempt Filed in WPEngine, Inc. v. Automattic Inc.
Featured Image by Shutterstock/Rose Tamani