WP Engine has filed a new amended complaint in its lawsuit against Automattic and WordPress co-founder Matthew Charles Mullenweg, revealing previously redacted portions of the case. The filing alleges that Automattic planned to target at least ten other competitors and even tried to pressure Stripe to end its business relationship with WP Engine.
The updated filings also show the company categorizing competitors as “friends,” “would-be friends,” and “charlatans”. The complaint also adds WooCommerce and the WordPress Foundation as defendants.
Move to Influence Stripe Contracts with WP Engine
According to the third amended complaint, Matt Mullenweg emailed a senior executive at Stripe in mid-October 2024, days after the lawsuit was filed, asking the company to “cancel any contracts or partnerships with WP Engine” and stating that Automattic would reconsider its own contracts if Stripe refused, “ [i]f you chose not to do so, we should exit our contracts.”
Exorbitantly Priced Partnerships
The filing references discussions in March 2024 about offering what it describes as “exorbitantly” priced ‘partnerships’” to competing hosting providers, including a “purported trademark license element” alongside other benefits.
The complaint states that in internal discussions centered on delaying action against hosts’ sites if talks progressed, but moving forward with alternative measures if agreements were not reached within a reasonable timeframe, “if those negotiations are promising, then we can delay targeting the sites they hos[t]. On a realistic/reasonable timeline, we should either close a meaningful partnership with these hosts or start stealing their sites.”
It also attributes a July 2024 remark to Automattic CFO Mark Davies, stating that “at some point, Automattic will need to take something away from these ‘partners’” if agreements were not finalized.
Anticompetitive Campaign
The amended document also states what is characterized as an intentional campaign of anticompetitive conduct. The materials are said to show defendants acknowledging that they have the power to “destroy all competition” and indicating that such harm could be inflicted on market participants unless they agreed to demands.
The filing also references what it describes as defendants’ “monopoly power”, contrasting claims about encouraging competitors to “contribute to the community” with internal documents that, it says, show “they are engaged in an anticompetitive campaign to coerce their competitors to ‘contribute to Automattic.’”
Restriction of Choice Plan
WP Engine also stated that internal acknowledgments concerning trademark licensing, stating that “any Tier 1 host (WPE for example)” would “pushback” on agreeing to a purported trademark license because “they get the same thing today for free. They’ve never paid for [the WordPress] trademarks and won’t want to pay.
The filings reveal that the defendants proposed a plan called a “Restriction of choice,” aimed at limiting users’ ability to use non-revenue-share plugins, “ Defendants proposed offering a “Restriction of choice” plan that would “[r]estrict or block the use of non-rev share plugins,” including even “in core,” establish a ‘plugin database’ that includes the tags and monetisableness’ of all WPORG plugins,” to create a “potentially large impact in all regards.”
Defendants acknowledged this ‘plan’ was a ‘threat: pay us/use our extensions or we’re going to do this.
Friends, Would-be friends, and Charlatans
Internal discussions suggest the defendants planned to pressure competitors who resisted price increases, labeling them “fair game” and even considering taking over their sites. As Defendants’ internal correspondence notes, ““if they don’t take the carrot we’ll give them the stick.”
Defendants categorized market participants as “friends (like Newfold) who pay us a lot of money. We want to nurture and value these relationships,” “would-be friends (like WP Engine) who are mostly good citizens within the WP ecosystem but don’t directly contribute to Automattic. We hope to change this,” and “charlatans who don’t contribute. The charlatans are free game, and we should steal every single WP site that they host.”
Warning Against Rolling Out Mirror
Document shows another market participant tried to “set[] up a mirror to remove some of the load on wp.org,” but Mullenweg warned against it, saying ““Please do not roll that out. If you do you will be in the same camp as WPE.”
Impact on Community and Customer
The amended complaint indicates that defendants were aware their actions had harmed the wider community. Automattic employees reportedly expressed concern about “how the community will react to” the conduct, warning it “may really hurt” and describing it as “a really big mistake.”
Another employee noted, “ The block we’ve imposed on WPE from .org impact[ed] their ability to keep their plugins up to date. But thousands of our own customers on Pressable and VIP utilise those plugins. So we’ve indirectly made our own customers vulnerable via the block on WPE.”
The next hearing date, as of now, is on June 4, 2026.