Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg has confirmed that plans to move Tumblr over to WordPress infrastructure have been put on hold indefinitely. Speaking on The Verge’s Decoder podcast, Mullenweg explained that the company decided to focus on projects that users can see and care about more directly, rather than a big backend overhaul.
“This was more like an infrastructure thing, kind of like any big re-architecture,” he said. “I still want to do it. It’s just cleaner. But right now, we’re not working on it.”

One reason for the migration was to better integrate Tumblr into the broader open social web, known as the fediverse, which includes platforms like Mastodon. While that’s still technically possible, Mullenweg hinted it’s no longer a main priority. “If there was a big push to implement fediverse, we would just do it on the Tumblr code base,” he noted.
Mullenweg also acknowledged that Tumblr isn’t profitable and relies on revenue from Automattic’s other products to stay afloat. Even so, he emphasized that he still believes in Tumblr’s long-term potential and plans to give it time to find its path forward.
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