Matt Mullenweg got voted out as Automattic CEO on September 9 and reinstated 33 hours later. During that brief window, CFO Mark Davies and Chief Legal Officer Andy Missan signed reciprocal severance agreements that guarantee each of them roughly $8.15 million combined—12 months of base salary as a lump sum plus accelerated equity vesting and another year of health coverage. When Mullenweg returned, he fired both executives and now has to decide whether to pay out these packages or challenge their legal validity. The agreements are heavily tilted in the executives' favor: the company has to prove "cause" within a narrow definition (gross negligence, fraud, material legal violations, or felonies involving moral turpitude) and give 30 days to fix the problem before firing without severance. The timing and structure raise obvious questions. Davies had no Automattic stock when he left—he sold it a few months prior—but still held vested options. The severance agreements were drafted with Davies' exact situation in mind, specifically protecting him from losing severance when his temporary CEO role ended. Neither executive has publicly explained why they signed each other's deals, and Mullenweg claims the board gave him no reason for voting him out, only 50 minutes' notice before the vote. He's left guessing about their motives. Two competing interpretations exist. One: the board genuinely believed Mullenweg posed a corporate risk (he's facing a lawsuit from WP Engine over allegedly destroying evidence) and wanted management protection if their intervention failed. The other: the board was trying to seize control for some unstated reason—maybe a strategic deal—and Mullenweg blocked it by returning and removing them. The board's silence on their actual reasoning, combined with Davies' stock sale and the generous severance terms, fed Mullenweg's suspicions enough that he took back the company and forced them out.