Automattic CEO calls Tumblr his ‘biggest failure’ so far

Sarah Perez, reporting for TechCrunch:

WordPress co-founder and Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg called the company’s Tumblr acquisition his biggest failure — but one he hasn’t given up on yet. The comments were made at the recent WordCamp Canada 2025 conference, where Mullenweg went live for a Town Hall session to connect with the open source-focused WordPress community.

The exec noted that Tumblr was still on a different technical stack than WordPress — something he had intended to correct by migrating the back end to WordPress infrastructure. However, that massive undertaking was put on hold earlier this year, as the cost to move Tumblr’s half-billion blogs would be difficult given that the blogging platform wasn’t profitable and continues to be sustained by the profits of other Automattic products.

and

Mullenweg acknowledged these concerns at his Town Hall session, saying, “I need to switch [Tumblr] over to WordPress, but it’s a big lift. It’s over 500 million blogs, actually, and, as a business, it’s costing so much more to run than it generates in revenue.”

I’ve always thought Automattic’s purchase of Tumblr was a bit of an odd decision. It made me wonder what Matt’s endgame was — and honestly, it feels like that vision still hasn’t solidified. With the right leadership and a much-needed cleanup, it could absolutely thrive again. Matt’s juggling too many things right now, but I really believe someone could make Tumblr the go-to platform for the coming years, especially once it becomes part of the Fediverse.