Tech company CEO fired after threatening to kill Trump

A California-based network security company has accepted the resignation of their CEO of he threatened to kill President-elect Donald Trump.

Matt Harrigan, the now FORMER CEO of PacketSled, went on a Facebook tirade on election night. The series of angry messages were part of a private thread that someone exposed through a series of screenshots.

In those posts, Harrigan made quite clear the intent to kill Mr. Trump:

• "I'm going to kill the president. Elect."
• "Bring it secret service."
• "Getting a sniper rifle and perching myself where it counts. Find a bedroom in the whitehouse that suits you motherf***er. I'll find you."
• "In no uncertain terms, f*** you America. Seriously. F*** off."

And just in case Harrigan hoped to find peace in his community of San Diego, Harrigan stuck the last dagger in the heart of that community with his Ron Burgandy-like quip "Really San Deigo? Trump? Go F*** yourself San Diego."

Harrigan later posted an apology on the PacketSled blog, which has now been deleted. A cached version here.

My recent facebook comment was intended to be a joke, in the context of a larger conversation, and only privately shared as such. Anyone who knows me, knows that I do not engage in this form of rhetoric with any level of seriousness and the comment most certainly does not represent my real personal views in any regard. I apologize if anything that I said was either taken seriously, was offensive, or caused any legitimate concern. Best Regards, Matt Harrigan

Upon learning of Harrigan's comments, PacketSled put Harrigan on leave and released the following statement (11/14):

PacketSled takes recent comments made by our CEO, seriously. Once we were made aware of these comments, we immediately reported this information to the secret service and will cooperate fully with any inquiries. These comments do not reflect the views or opinions of PacketSled, its employees, investors or partners. Our CEO has been placed on administrative leave.

By early this morning (11/15), PacketSled 'accepted his resignation' and released this statement:

The PacketSled Board of Directors accepted the resignation of President and CEO Matthew Harrigan, effective immediately. Fred Wilmot, the company's Chief Technology Officer, will serve as interim CEO while the Board of Directors conducts a search for a permanent replacement. We want to be very clear, PacketSled does not condone the comments made by Mr. Harrigan, which do not reflect the views or opinions of the company, its employees, investors or partners.

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