Less than 48 hours after Automattic's board placed Matt Mullenweg on leave, Mullenweg told employees he was back "in control" of the company and that the board was again in agreement. 404 Media cited Slack screenshots late Thursday evening where Mullenweg posted "Don't call it a comeback" and linked to LL Cool J's music video for "Mama Said Knock You Out." "Mullenweg's Slack profile picture currently shows him wearing a pirate hat and eyepatch," the report notes. From the report: "Happy to announce the board is back in agreement, and I'm in control of Automattic," Mullenweg wrote in the company-wide Announcements channel on Slack. "A lot happened in the past 48 hours that we need to sort out, and I hope much of it was a misunderstanding, because I have huge respect and regard for those involved." Mark Davies, Automattic's CFO who was set to act as interim CEO according to a statement from Automattic, had his Slack account deactivated as of at least Friday, sources told 404 Media and TechCrunch similarly reported. Davies, Mullenweg, and Automattic did not respond to 404 Media's requests for comment for this story. Techcrunch reported that Mullenweg told them a blog post is forthcoming. On Friday morning, Mullenweg published a blog post on his personal website, titled "Major Life Announcement." In it he announced he's buying a tugboat. "Anybody who's founded a company and had to find good stewards knows that no one will love a thing quite like the original owner, but sometimes you can find the perfect person to carry the torch," he wrote in the blog. He did not address the confusion surrounding his status at Automattic. The back-and-forth follows years of legal fights, layoffs, employee departures, and controversy surrounding Mullenweg's leadership.

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The argument in Washington over the past few months has been about whether to ban Chinese AI models or restrict them. What has been less examined is what Beijing intends to do with the open-weight – that is, publicly available and downloadable – models its labs have built. Beijing has started to answer that question, and not with one voice.

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This incident highlights the critical need for robust verification processes to prevent unauthorized data disclosures and protect customer privacy.

The post Revolut reportedly disclosed customer data, including Bitcoin records, after unauthorized government request appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

The agency that oversees prediction markets has investigated Polymarket trades on Biden pardons and the Iran war—and even more potential insider trading at Google, documents obtained by WIRED show.

Timnit Gebru argues that AI companies are stoking fears of extinction to avoid discussing actual harms, like autonomous weapons.

A combination of rapid advances, recursive self-improvement, and agentic swarms are genuinely “spooking people” inside big labs.

A federal judge has sided with Anthropic on its claims that the Department of Defense illegally retaliated against Anthropic’s protected speech by labeling the AI company a “supply chain risk.” The judge found that designation, intended to penalize Anthropic for telling the U.S. military it would not allow their technology to be used for mass surveillance of U.S.

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AI leaders worry antitrust law could stand in the way of what they view as an increasingly urgent push to coordinate a slowdown in AI development.

This week on “Uncanny Valley,” we dig into a former Anthropic researcher’s AI doomsday warning, the latest upgrades from Apple’s event, and the census report that claimed Trump won the 2020 election.

Automattic's board has placed founder and CEO Matt Mullenweg on a paid leave of absence against his will, with CFO Mark Davies taking over as interim CEO. The reason for the move remains unclear, but it follows years of legal fights, layoffs, employee departures, and controversy surrounding Mullenweg's leadership. TechCrunch reports: Earlier Wednesday, Mullenweg posted in a Slack channel visible to all employees that the company's chief financial officer, Mark Davies, had "conspired" with other board members Ann Dunwoody, Toni Schneider, and Sue Decker to vote to put Mullenweg on a paid leave of absence. The message read: "And the biggest news: I won't be able to make the [meeting] tomorrow. @Mark Davies has conspired with @Ann Dunwoody, @Toni, and @Sue Decker behind my back and they voted to put me on a paid leave of absence. I voted against that. Wishing Mark and all of you the very best. To clarify @Mark Davies was voted as interim CEO. I received the resolution 50 minutes before the meeting start, and requested repeatedly for time to have it reviewed by independent legal counsel, even a few hours, which was denied." A Slack message to the open source WordPress.org community from the project's executive director, Mary Hubbard, also confirmed Mullenweg's change of status at the commercial company. However, Hubbard said that WordPress.org was not impacted. "Matt remains the leader of the WordPress project and I remain Executive Director of WordPress. Our teams, priorities, and work continue as planned," she wrote.

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University of Illinois Chicago researchers say heightened federal immigration enforcement corresponded with about $1.26 billion in foregone retail and restaurant activity in Cook County, but the U.S. Department of Homeland Security dismissed the correlation between a good economy and illegal immigration.

Matthew Wilson co-authored the report by UIC’s Great Cities Institute that examined the heightened enforcement period beginning in January 2025.

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Jacob Coxon talks to WIRED about the “mini Manhattan project” inside Anthropic, the problem with alignment, and why AI labs have just a few years left to make their systems safe.

As AI agents go rogue and fears of superintelligence grow, politicians are raising the alarm over its potential harm to human existence.

After I removed the safety guardrails from a powerful open-source model, it found vulnerabilities in my household devices and hacked into a PC. But it also told me how to make everything a lot more secure.

Kepler Computing claims a new approach to chip design—and a proprietary material—can help end the supply bottlenecks that have sent memory prices surging.

Now the UK government plans to introduce new legislation that would see companies face fines and potential criminal liability, and signaled similar plans could extend to Snapchat and Instagram.

A landmark announcement by the frontier AI lab has been overshadowed by accusations of impropriety.

The State Department has renewed its strongest possible warning to Americans considering a trip to Libya: do not go.

The department’s current Libya advisory is Level 4, the highest of the four travel-advisory levels. It warns Americans not to travel to Libya “for any reason” because of crime, terrorism, unexploded landmines, civil unrest, kidnapping, and armed conflict. The advisory also warns of health risks and notes that violence between competing armed groups can erupt without warning.

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The Trump administration announced a major oil deal with Venezuela on Friday that would purportedly give the United States rights to 65 billion barrels of Venezuelan oil, or 20 percent of the country’s oil reserves. Much information and key details are still lacking, but everything we know about the deal is troubling:

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While philosophers ponder AI consciousness, the models have ideas of their own.