The CEO of a California start-up who threatened to kill Donald Trump in an election night tirade on Facebook has resigned in shame, blaming the ordeal on a joke gone wrong that was taken out of context.

Former PacketSled CEO Matt Harrigan made several posts to his private Facebook page on election night that were captured in screen shots and reposted to Reddit. Harrigan’s Facebook page has since been deleted, KGTV reports.

The messages included:

“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 mother***er. I’ll find you.”

“In no uncertain terms, f*** you America. Seriously. F*** off.”

He also targeted his home town of San Diego, News Radio 965 reports.

“Really San Diego? Trump? Go F*** yourself San Diego,” Harrigan wrote.

Harrigan later apologized on a company blog, which was also deleted, and blamed his troubles on people taking his comments out of context.

“My recent Facebook comment was intended to be a joke, in the context of a larger conversation, and only privately shared as such,” he wrote, according to archive.is.

“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.”

Harrigan made the same excuses in a similar “apology” on Twitter, though several folks called him out on it.

@mattharrigan @packetsled you can’t take these out of context. Forever saved in cyber world from a man in the business? Wacko! pic.twitter.com/iM4Zag01TA — TRUMPlican (@cheewawa) November 13, 2016

PacketSled, a cyber security company founded by Harrigan in 2013, announced on the company blog Monday that PacketSled officials alerted the Secret Service to the CEO’s rant, and placed him on administrative leave. By early Tuesday morning, the company announced Harrigan is gone, KGTV reports.

“The PacketSled Board of Directors accepted the resignation of President and CEO Mathew Harrigan, effective immediately,” the PacketSled blog read. “Fred Wilmont, 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.”

The announcement was also posted to PacketSled’s Twitter account.