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Texas founder gets death threat from Indian student: 'I’ve money to hire a hitman'
A Texas-based entrepreneur has shared a screenshot of the death threat he received from an Indian student who threatened to hire a hitman.
A Texas-based entrepreneur has shared a screenshot of the death threat he received from an Indian student who was apparently angry about a fellow countryman failing to qualify for a prestigious coding programme. Lee Calcote, founder of Layer5, has shared the shocking threats he received after calling out an Indian developer for sending him an abusive message.
A timeline of events
For some context, Lee Calcote is a member of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation, which has been accepted as a Google Summer of Code (GSoC) mentoring organization for 2025. GSoC is an annual, global programme run by Google that offers stipends to university students and beginner open source contributors for working on open source software projects during the summer.
On Friday, the Austin, Texas-based entrepreneur received an abusive LinkedIn message from an Indian developer who was apparently upset that his friend had not qualified for GSoC. Calcote shared a screenshot of the message on LinkedIn and X, which immediately made him the target of more abusive messages.
(Also read: US founder calls out Indian techie for abusive LinkedIn message: ‘Absolutely horrible behaviour’)
One such message contained a death threat. The message was sent to Calcote on LinkedIn by an engineering student based in Bengaluru, India. The student has now deleted his LinkedIn profile.
Calcote shared a screenshot of the message wherein the Bengaluru student threatened to hire a hitman through the dark web to murder him. The student demanded that the Texas-based entrepreneur delete his initial post against the Indian developer who sent him an abusive message.
The death threat
“Mr Lee. This is an order to delete your Twitter post against my very own friend... First you ruin his selection chances and then tarnish his image publicly? This is your last ultimatum to do the following - First remove all posts you have made against him, then apologize publicly for doing so and then get him the GSoC selection he deserves which you didn't give just because he was an Indian. Racist brats like you deserve a dog's death,” the student wrote.
He then threatened the US founder with dire consequences if he failed to take down the post.
“If you fail to comply to either of these, I have enough connections and money to hire a hitman in your country from the dark web who will first rape your wife and then take your life. Don't take it as a joke.
“There are other things that can be done as well like all of us Indians spamming your LinkedIn posts and running an agenda against you that destroys your social image forever. Hope you comply the earliest,” the Indian student concluded.
Social media reacts
The message shocked viewers who used the comments section to criticise the student.
“I mean how could somebody be an idiot like these two, no values at all,” wrote one X user. “That guy is just tarnishing image of Indians left right and centre,” another said.
“Lee this has got to stop, I recommend you to take action on both the individuals, this is not some kinda joke they're trying to play, you are a respected individual who's representing a prestigious organization, this kind of behaviour is not to be tolerated,” an Indian X user said in the comment section.
