Matt Mullenweg confirmed on his personal blog that Automattic has become a domain registrar.

Automattic, which has operated as a reseller for Wild West Domains and Domains by Proxy (both GoDaddy subsidiaries), will soon be able to sell domains directly to WordPress.com users.

Mullenweg revealed that gaining registrar status has been a personal goal for years due to his disappointment in the buying and management experiences with existing registrars. Regarding what Automattic plans to do with the new status, Mullenweg wrote:

“It’ll be a few months while we build all the tools necessary to begin taking advantage of our registrar status so in the meantime we’ll continue to use Godaddy, who has been an excellent partner.”