WP Engine is asking a court to put a stop to Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg’s public campaign against the company. In a motion for a preliminary injunction filed against Automattic and Mullenweg on Friday, the third-party hosting platform requests that the court restore its access to WordPress resources and allow it to regain control of its plugin that had been taken over.
In the filing, WP Engine claims it’s facing “multiple forms of immediate irreparable harm” as a result of Mullenweg and Automattic’s actions, including “loss of customers, market share and goodwill.” The company also says it saw a 14 percent increase in cancellation requests from September 26th to the 30th — just days after Mullenweg called WP Engine a “cancer” to the WordPress community.
WP Engine asks that Automattic restore operations to the “status quo as it existed prior” to the start of its dispute. “Developers are anxious and want assurance they will not be next to receive another extortionate demand from Mullenweg, become his next target of nuclear war, or next to have their plug-ins expropriated,” the motion reads. “Defendants’ ham-fisted takeover attempts are increasing the security risk for everyone in the WordPress community.”
Automattic spokesperson Megan Fox says the company denies WP Engine’s allegations, calling them “gross mischaracterizations of reality” in an email to The Verge. “WP Engine has put profits ahead of the WordPress community and has expected to continue benefiting, for free, from the tireless contributions of Matt, Automattic, and the WordPress community,” Fox writes.
Update, October 18th: Added Automattic’s statement.
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