Mullenweg’s “full nuclear” message

According to court documents publicly refiled September 30, Matt Mullenweg was talking about going “full nuclear with WPE,” with “partnerships/merger/M&A as an exit,” before the WordPress feud went public.

The August 15, 2024 Slack message was put to Mullenweg during his deposition. He said he didn’t recall it but could see it in the document; he wanted more context before explaining “full nuclear.”

Another refiled exhibit opens a window onto WordPress.org’s “Mission Control” dashboard. Automattic CTO Barry Abrahamson testified that it graphed active installations of rival WP Engine’s ACF Pro plugin “that WordPress.org knows about.” The data came through WordPress.org’s API; he said it was anonymized and aggregated before storage.

Matt Mullenweg (deposition testimony), U.S. District Court, Northern District of California / CourtListener

ECF 418-1: Mullenweg deposition excerpts, refiled September 30, 2026

Barry Abrahamson (deposition testimony), U.S. District Court, Northern District of California / CourtListener

ECF 419: Abrahamson deposition excerpts, refiled September 30, 2026