An in-kind donation and a long-time host
Do conflicts of interest exist between Matt Mullenweg and Salesforce or Bluehost?
Given I have a bit of time on my hands right now, I’ve been cooking and baking more. Over the past couple of weeks, that’s meant fall classics like maple butter tarts, and a few Korean and Chinese dishes, like kimchijeon, jeyuk bokkeum, heukmi bap, dan dan mian, and cong you bing.
Naturally, with Thanksgiving fast approaching, I’m preparing for a lot of kitchen time. There’s certainly nothing else going on next week—not even on Tuesday, November 26, at 10:30am Pacific Standard Time (18:30 UTC).
According to the court, the public hearing on WP Engine’s motion for preliminary injunction will be streamed on Zoom. Public hearings are generally quite dull, and I wouldn’t expect this one to be much different[1]. Judge Martínez-Olguín could rule on the motion at that time, or consider the arguments further, and rule over the coming days, perhaps after Thanksgiving. Regardless of where you stand, to be abundantly clear: A preliminary injunction is an extraordinary and drastic remedy. WP Engine’s filing and subsequent reply for the motion outline what it considers “irreparable injury”, meaning money alone will not make WP Engine whole. Whether the judge agrees with WP Engine’s argument is entirely the point of this hearing.
For me, personally, I think there is substantial irreparable injury to the community. The drastic actions taken by Matt Mullenweg have caused immense stress and anxiety within the community. Even those who agree with Mullenweg in principle often find his actions confusing, at best, chaotic, at worst. In my opinion, there is substantial public interest to granting a preliminary injunction, and I hope WP Engine succeeds on Tuesday.
In my post on the WordPress Foundation’s board of directors, I outlined the perceived conflicts of interest inherent in the appointment of both Mark Ghosh and Chele Farley. Looking across the broader WordPress ecosystem, however, there are other notable connections between companies, which could represent conflicts of interest. Today, I’d like to focus on two of them that may be directly or tangentially related to the Matt Mullenweg and WP Engine saga.
Slack, Salesforce, and donations
In September 2019, Salesforce invested $300 million in Automattic’s Series D round, with a post-money valuation of $3 billion. Salesforce was the only investor in this round—meaning Salesforce acquired 10% of Automattic—which kicked off a number of connections between Salesforce and Automattic.[2]
Flashback a few years to WordCamp San Francisco in October 2014[3], where, during his yearly State of the Word address, Mullenweg announced that WordPress would be moving away from IRC as its primary communication tool to Slack, a relatively new player in the business communication space, having launched in August 2013[4]. In many ways, Mullenweg was taking a bet on Slack—was it better or worse than IRC for communication? Would it help community collaboration?
However, Slack was also making a bet on WordPress—was an in-kind donation of a high-tier account, provided to thousands of community members, going to benefit the startup, or would it hurt Slack’s bottom line? I have no insight into Slack’s financials in 2014, nor Tiny Speck’s financials prior to that, though the company did shut down its game and pivot entirely to Slack.
In hindsight, it seems like this was a big win for Slack—the community quickly embraced Slack for communication, and virtually every major company in the WordPress ecosystem adopted it. Did Slack offer these kind of in-kind donations to other communities, or only WordPress? I’m not personally aware of any other large, donated Slack instances. Perhaps you might be thinking “anyone can create free Slack instances.” And, you’re right. But the WordPress instance utilizes a paid-tier—free instances limit message history to 90 days, for example, which would be a non-starter in an open source ecosystem.
In 2021, Salesforce acquired Slack.
On October 18, 2024, Mullenweg posted on WordPress.org thanking Salesforce for its in-kind donation of Slack to the WordPress community. An additional callout was added on the Five for the Future landing page, as well as a special landing page for “sponsorships” which, as of this writing, only includes Salesforce.[5]
When the post went up, about a month ago, it seemed to come out of left field and was completely unexpected. In no uncertain terms, Slack has supported WordPress for the past decade, via an in-kind donation that, on paper, could be estimated in the millions of dollars annually. But, why recognize that now? What triggered the WordPress.org post? And, aren’t there other companies providing unrecognized, in-kind donations to WordPress?
A day prior to the post on WordPress.org, it was reported that Mullenweg offered a second round of “alignment” at Automattic—Automatticians could receive 9 months of compensation if they responded within 4 hours of his message.[6] At the time, there were rumours that Mullenweg hopped on a plane bound for Hawaii immediately after posting his message in Automattic’s Slack instance.
Fast forward to October 30. During Mullenweg’s interview at TechCrunch Disrupt, he mentioned:
I was just with Marc Benioff in Hawaii, a few days ago.
Benioff is, of course, the founder, chairman, and CEO of Salesforce.
Putting this altogether, here’s a timeline of all of the above:
- In 2014, Slack provides the WordPress community with a paid instance, without payment.
- In 2019, Automattic receives $300 million from Salesforce, in exchange for 10% of the company.
- In 2021, Salesforce acquires Slack.
- On October 17, 2024, Mullenweg goes to Hawaii to meet Marc Benioff—perhaps alongside other businesspeople—who nominally oversees Salesforce’s investment in Automattic.
- On October 18, 2024, Mullenweg posts a “thank you” to Salesforce, on WordPress.org, which he has called his personal website.
What we don’t know is why now? What conversation led to the post on October 18? Salesforce, a 10% owner in Automattic, may have requested more recognition for their donation, via Benioff. Or, Benioff may have expressed frustration or concern with Automattic’s financials and Mullenweg offered this as a form of “free” marketing. Or, perhaps the war with WP Engine is throwing up a flag within Salesforce, as it looks to secure its investment and sees signs of erratic behaviour. Perhaps none of these things happened or are true.
But, the timing of the ongoing in-kind donation seems odd, at best, given the saga. What’s more confusing: who is Salesforce donating the Slack instance to? Logging in to the Making WordPress Slack requires a WordPress.org account, which Mullenweg has made clear is his own, personal website. If no money is changing hands, is Salesforce at all concerned their donation is to an individual and not to a community or non-profit?
Bringing it back around, is it a conflict of interest for Mullenweg to publish a “thank you” on the WordPress News blog—whose posts are published to every WordPress install in the world—to Salesforce, a 10% owner of Automattic?
Recommended hosts and Newfold Digital
For years, WordPress.org has included a list of recommended WordPress hosts. A snapshot of the page from 2005 (as far back as it goes) shows three hosts listed: PowWeb, Blue Host (sic), and Laughing Squid. Only one of those remains on the site today, Bluehost, which the page describes as “WordPress.org's longest running recommended host.”[7] Over the years, Bluehost has been consistently featured on the page, sometimes with prominent callouts.
More recently, in the context of the war against WP Engine, Mullenweg posted a list of “promotions” on the WordPress.org news blog, referencing a number of offers from a variety of hosts, though stopping short of includes all of these hosts to WordPress.org’s list of recommended hosts.[8] Bluehost is first on the list of promotions.
The WordPress Hosting page is an interesting one. It does not represent what I would consider to be a comprehensive list of hosts that do WordPress well. And, unlike other parts of WordPress.org, it does not appear to be overseen by any community team—like, say, the hosting team—with a set of criteria defined and enforced by that team. Instead, the criteria are entirely defined by Mullenweg, and the page updated by his employees, at his discretion.
The recent history of the page shows the most recent major update was adding Pressable and removing WordPress.com (on October 2) and, prior to that, adding Hostinger (on March 28). Hosts come and go on the list, though Bluehost has been on the list since the very beginning.
So then, what does it take to get on the list? The bottom of the page has a paragraph about how to get on the list:
We’ll be looking at this list several times a year, so keep an eye out for us re-opening the survey for hosts to submit themselves for inclusion. Listing is completely arbitrary, but includes criteria like: contributions to WordPress.org, size of customer base, ease of WP auto-install and auto-upgrades, avoiding GPL violations, design, tone, historical perception, using the correct logo, capitalizing WordPress correctly, not blaming us if you have a security issue, and up-to-date system software.
While there may have been at least one survey conducted in the past, it has almost certainly been years. But, let’s look at the criteria and compare each of the listed hosts.
| Criteria | Pressable | Bluehost | Hostinger | DreamHost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Contributions to WordPress.org[9] (assuming Five for the Future) | 11 hours per week | 72 hours per week | 160 hours per week | 39 hours per week |
| Size of customer base | ~10,000 | ~1.5 million | ~110,000 | ~125,000 |
| Ease of WP auto-install and auto-upgrades | Automated | Automated | Automated | Automated |
| Avoiding GPL violations | ?? | ?? | ?? | ?? |
| Design | Has one | Has one | Has one | Has one |
| Tone | Has one | Has one | Has one | Has one |
| Historical Perception | 4.8 | 4.2 | 4.7 | 4.7 |
| Using the correct logo | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Capitalizing WordPress correctly | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Not blaming us if you have a security issue | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Up-to-date system software | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️[10] | ✔️ |
If the table above looks ridiculous, that’s because it is. Almost all of the defined criteria are incredibly subjective. “Tone”? How does one even begin to rate the tone of a given brand? Perhaps, as Mullenweg recently quipped, hosts that market “Black Friday” deals have a poor tone and need to grow up? That would likely exclude every host on the list, however.
What stands out to me though, is how small Pressable is, compared to the other hosts, and how little it contributes to WordPress.org. By contrast, SiteGround, which appeared in the list until July 2023, is a much larger host, and meets all of the above criteria at first glance, contributing 117 hours and rating as well as Pressable. But, here I am pretending that this criteria is what is actually being followed when, as I said above, the list is entirely defined by Mullenweg.
The more interesting aspect is the potential conflicts of interest on this page. Yes, WordPress.org is Mullenweg’s website, and the list of hosts he links to on his personal website is up to him. But, let’s look at each of these hosts individually:
- Pressable is owned by Automattic, thus under full control of Mullenweg.
- Bluehost is a subsidiary brand of Newfold Digital, and was formerly part of Endurance International Group (EIG). Mullenweg has previously noted that Newfold has a licence to use the WordPress trademark. Let’s come back to this one in a moment.
- Hostinger is privately-owned and operated. With the inclusion of “WordPress” in the primary navigation of its website, Hostinger likely has written permission to use the WordPress trademark in some contexts.
- DreamHost is privately-owned and operated. With the inclusion of “WordPress” in the primary navigation of its website, DreamHost likely has written permission to use the WordPress trademark in some contexts.
Bluehost—and, in turn, Newfold Digital—stands out in the list, as they have a licence to utilize the WordPress trademark. Bluehost also partners with Automattic to offer “WP Cloud”-powered hosting. WP Cloud is Automattic’s “WordPress infrastructure as a service” offering, meaning every purchase of this Bluehost offering benefits Automattic.
The history of Newfold Digital is a bit interesting in the context of the hosting list, and WordPress trademark policy. In February 2021, Clearlake Capital Group, a private equity firm, acquired EIG, and formed Newfold Digital by bringing “Web.com” and EIG’s hosting brands together under one entity, in partnership with Siris Capital Group (another private equity firm). To be clear, Clearlake and Siris still own a large portion of Newfold Digital, alongside CapitalG (a venture capital firm owned by Alphabet / Google).
What may have been forgotten to time is that, over a decade ago, in May 2014, EIG invested in Automattic, for a ~1.3% stake in the company. In acquiring EIG, Clearlake seems to have also acquired a stake in Automattic. It’s entirely possible that Clearlake also acquired (and spun off) a WordPress trademark licence—the timeline for the sublicence to Newfold Digital is unclear.
So, on the list of recommended WordPress hosts, published on Mullenweg’s personal website (WordPress.org), we have two hosts that are either owned by, or have a stake in, Automattic, and two hosts that seemingly have a separate agreement to use the WordPress trademark on their respective websites. For the latter two, does additional money exchange hands to appear on the recommended hosts list?
Of course, my point in outlining these potential conflicts of interest isn’t to suggest that either company is operating poorly, or doing anything inherently “wrong”—in donating a paid Slack instance, Slack, and now Salesforce, really have helped the community; and Newfold Digital contributes a lot to the WordPress ecosystem. However, where the possibility of a conflict of interest exists, in most communities or ecosystems, that possibility would be disclosed. In choosing not to disclose them, Mullenweg only adds to the confusion within the ecosystem and community, and to the perception that nefarious things could be happening.
Though, one wonders if Mullenweg will attend in-person. ↩︎
Salesforce uses WordPress.com VIP to host a number of its marketing sites, for example the Salesforce Newsroom. ↩︎
The last WordCamp San Francisco. Going forward, WCSF was replaced by WordCamp US. ↩︎
I could write a ten-or-twenty-paragraph footnote here about Glitch, the game that Tiny Speck created before Slack, the community around it the game, and how the company ultimately had to pivot to Slack, which was the better startup idea. I could write about how important that game and its community were to me way back then. I suspect much of this history has been lost to time, but… if you want an ever-so-tiny taste, Slack has preserved one screen of Glitch on its 404 pages. I could write another, incredibly long post about the open source efforts that have attempted to replace Glitch, none of which have succeeded. ↩︎
Nitpicking, perhaps, but how is this in-kind donation “Five for the Future”? Extrapolating from the on-paper $8.8 million in-kind donation of a Business+ Slack instance, is Slack’s revenue $176 million annually? Is Slack’s “WordPress” revenue somehow $176 million? ↩︎
Notably, this second alignment offer included a lifetime ban on WordPress contributions. ↩︎
You, dear reader of footnotes, likely know that I’m going to call out the lack of a curly quote in this sentence. WordPress automatically converts straight quotes to curly ones, but the content in that page is hardcoded, meaning an engineer typed it into their code editor and pushed it to version control. It seems ridiculous that, in 2024, a WordPress-powered site, especially one that is fully owned by Mullenweg, would use a straight quote in place of a curly quote. But, not everyone cares about curly quotes, unlike you, dear reader of footnotes. ↩︎
If a host is participating in these promotions, and WordPress.org is de facto “recommending” them via the WordPress.org news blog, are they not recommended hosts? ↩︎
Which, again, is Mullenweg’s personal website. ↩︎
Hostinger likely falls short on the “security” front, if the criteria were taken seriously, though its software may be “up to date.” A report about the phishing landscape, from 2023, puts Hostinger as the third most frequently used hosting provider for subdomain abuse. Hostinger has been on this list for years. ↩︎
