The CEO of cybersecurity firm PacketSled has resigned following threats he made about assassinating president-elect Donald Trump.
Matt Hartigan, former CEO of PacketSled, posted to Facebook following the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States, “I’m going to kill the president. Elect,” before saying, “Getting a sniper rifle and perching myself where it counts. Find a bedroom in the White House that suits you motherf*cker. I’ll find you.”
Commenters warned Hartigan that his comments could draw attention from the authorities, to which Hartigan replied, “Bring it secret service.”
Hartigan’s comments were noticed by Reddit users, who promptly contacted the authorities and reported them as a possible threat.
PacketSled released a statement relating to Hartigan on their blog Monday confirming that he had been put on administrative leave and saying, “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.”
On Sunday, Hartigan apologised for his threats, claiming on Twitter that he was joking:
https://twitter.com/mattharrigan/status/797911562543468546
https://twitter.com/mattharrigan/status/797911798699544576
https://twitter.com/mattharrigan/status/797912619227058177
On Tuesday, PacketSled announced that they had accepted Matt Hartigan’s resignation as CEO:
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.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart Tech covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan_ or email him at lnolan@breitbart.com
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