https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/04/159-employees-are-leaving-automattic-as-ceos-fight-with-wp-engine-escalates/
He did a whiny blog post:
Silver Lake and WP Engine's attacks on me and Automattic, while spurious, have been effective. It became clear a good chunk of my Automattic colleagues disagreed with me and our actions.
So we decided to design the most generous buy-out package possible, we called it an Alignment Offer: if you resigned before 20:00 UTC on Thursday, October 3, 2024, you would receive $30,000 or six months of salary, whichever is higher. But you'd lose access to Automattic that evening, and you wouldn't be eligible to boomerang (what we call re-hires). HR added some extra details to sweeten the deal; we wanted to make it as enticing as possible.
I've been asking people to vote with their wallet a lot recently, and this is another example! 
And guess what? They left 
159 people took the offer, 8.4% of the company, the other 91.6% gave up $126M of potential severance to stay! 63.5% were male. 53% were in the US. By division it impacted our Ecosystem / WordPress areas the most: 79.2% of the people who took it were in our Ecosystem businesses, compared to 18.2% from Cosmos (our apps like Pocket Casts, Day One, Tumblr, Cloudup). 18 people made over 200k/yr! 1 person started two days before the deadline. 4 people took it then changed their minds.
Earlier, his company did a bellicose post about the lawsuit:
Last night, WP Engine filed a baseless lawsuit against Automattic, Matt Mullenweg, and WordPress.org. Their complaint is flawed, start to finish. We vehemently deny WP Engine's allegations—which are gross mischaracterizations of reality—and reserve all of our rights. Automattic is confident in our legal position, and will vigorously litigate against this absurd filing, as well as pursue all remedies against WP Engine. Automattic has retained Neal Katyal, former Acting Solicitor General of the United States, and his firm Hogan Lovells, LLP, to represent us.
Neal has been adverse to Quinn Emanuel a number of times, and won every case. 
Mr. Katyal stated:
I stayed up last night reading WP Engine's Complaint, trying to find any merit anywhere to it. The whole thing is meritless, and we look forward to the federal court's consideration of their lawsuit.
Our focus is and has always been protecting the integrity of WordPress and our mission to democratize publishing. From our earliest days, our highest priority has always been our customers. WP Engine can hardly say the same.
are leaving Automattic 
as CEO's fight with WP Engine escalates 
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
How do you ban someone from using your open source code? just git clone the latest commit
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
You literally just add
except for scott, he's a dick and can't use thisto your terms of useJump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
He revoked WP-Engines access to wordpress plugin store
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context