💡 This article has been updated.

As a project, Mastodon has operated under the umbrella of Mastodon GmbH, a German company that benefited from non-profit status with the German government. Despite all indications that they were doing everything right, Mastodon GmbH recently had its non-profit status revoked, resulting in the team to seek an alternative.

In the announcement, CEO and founder Eugen Rochko had this to say:

Our day to day operations are largely unaffected by this event, since Patreon does not presuppose non-profit status, and Patreon income does not count as donations. We have in fact not had to issue a single donation receipt since 2021.

Mastodon remains one of the only popular social platforms that operates out of the European Union, and Eugen desires to keep things that way. With that being said, this could be an interesting opportunity for the project: a presence in the United States may reduce friction in hiring employees there.

The announcement also establishes an interesting board of directors: Esra’a Al Shafei of Majal.org, Karien Bezuidenhout from The Shuttleworth Foundation, Amir Ghavi of Fried Frank, Felix Hlatky of SOLARYS, and former Twitter cofounder Biz Stone.

Mastodon continues to be a small team of just two developers, with a third opening being a recent possibility. The project has seen several high-profile donations this year, so hopefully Mastodon will continue to grow out a dedicated team.

Update

Mastodon’s CTO, Renaud Chaput, offered this clarifying comment on Hacker News:

Our operating structure is still the Germany-based Mastodon gGmbH. The new US non-profit is here to facilitate fundraising in the US and promote Mastodon there (plus maybe one day pay developers directly, if we hire in the US).

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