According to a law enforcement source involved with the inquiry, Matthew Alan Livelsberger, an active-duty US Army Green Beret, is the driver of the Tesla Cybertruck that exploded outside the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas on Wednesday.
Four US officials said Livelsberger was a senior enlisted Army Special Forces operations master sergeant. According to three officials, he was on leave at the time of the event but was on active duty with the 10th Special Forces Group in Germany.
Livelsberger was on leave when he passed away, according to a statement released by the US Army on Thursday. However, it did not mention that he was killed in the Vegas explosion. The US Special Forces, also referred to as the “Green Berets,” present themselves as a top-tier combat unit that specializes in unorthodox tactics and guerrilla warfare overseas.
At a press conference on Thursday, Las Vegas Sheriff Kevin McMahill stated that the driver had shot himself in the head before the explosion outside the Trump hotel that injured seven others. At the press conference, McMahill and other officers displayed a picture of Livelsberger and provided his name, but they simply called the driver the “subject” and “person of interest.”
According to McMahill, because Livelsberger’s body was so severely charred, authorities are not recognizing him as the one discovered inside the Cybertruck.
“Until I have confirmation via DNA or medical records that this is, in fact, the subject inside the vehicle,” McMahill declared, “I will not return.”
Authorities “have confidence that this is in fact the same person,” according to McMahill, because Livelsberger had two tattoos on his arm and stomach, which were also found on the body in the car. According to a law enforcement official who spoke to CNN, Livelsberger’s wife recognized the tattoos.
The motive of the driver is still unknown, and officials are not aware of any connection “to any terrorist organizations around the world,” according to Spencer Evans, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Las Vegas Division.
Given that both incidents had a symbolic target on New Year’s Day, a truck leased through the website Turo, and a suspect with military experience, the explosion shared some broad characteristics with the vehicle attack that occurred in New Orleans earlier on Wednesday. Despite constantly referring to the Vegas explosion as a “isolated incident,” authorities stated that they are looking into any connections between the two acts.
Christopher Raia, the deputy assistant director of the FBI, stated on Thursday that there is currently no conclusive connection between the Las Vegas incident and the one that occurred here in New Orleans.
According to the FBI, “law enforcement activity” is being carried out at a Colorado Springs home in connection with the explosion by the Denver FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the Colorado Springs Police Department.
The course of the incident:
According to McMahill, the Cybertruck was rented in Denver on December 28 and stopped at a number of Tesla charging sites in Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Nevada before arriving in Las Vegas early on New Year’s Day.
When the truck was first seen in the city at 7:29 a.m., it traveled up and down Las Vegas Boulevard before arriving at the Trump Hotel, where, according to police, a device operated by the driver detonated a combination of pyrotechnics, gas tanks, and camping gasoline in the truck’s bed.
The cops displayed CCTV footage that showed the truck exploding. Related social media footage shows the car being soaked with water and enveloped in smoke.
Police showed footage of burned gasoline containers and firework mortars discovered among the debris at a press briefing. According to McMahill, authorities are currently attempting to obtain the video from the Cybertruck’s cameras, which most certainly recorded the event.
Even more than 40 storeys up, guests who were staying at the Trump International Hotel at the time of the explosion said that the windows shook. The visitors, who wished to remain anonymous, reported seeing smoke rising from the elevator doors and billowing in the stairwells. They were forced to remain on their floor when the elevator service was stopped.
Damage from the explosion was evident in the valet area of the Trump hotel on Thursday. There was smoke damage to parts of the ceiling and a hole several feet wide in the gold awning.
According to the FBI, the Colorado Springs Police Department, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the Denver FBI were engaged in “law enforcement activity” Thursday at a Colorado Springs residence in connection with the explosion.
What we are aware of regarding the driver:
Livelsberger was a highly decorated combat veteran whose experience with explosives and special forces seemed at odds with an ineffective attack that partially depended on pyrotechnics, according to a family member and former Army colleague.
They also said that Livelsberger loved his nation, especially the president-elect.
A relative who wished to remain anonymous told CNN that “when President Trump was in office, (Livelsberger) would comment on his Facebook page about the things President Trump had said or done or how he’s helping the military.” “Matt simply adored Mr. Trump and had a great deal of respect for him.”
The Colorado Secretary of State voter registration record shows that Livelsberger was not a member of any political party.
Dismantling a network of Taliban-aligned soldiers that had been setting off vehicle bombs in and around Kabul in an attempt to topple the government was a major goal of Livelsberger’s mission, according to a fellow Green Berets member who served with him in Afghanistan.
According to his former coworker, Livelsberger became a parent in April of last year.
Considering Livelsberger’s strong qualifications as a Green Beret with a history in communications, IT, and tactical unmanned aerial vehicles, the military colleague expressed his disbelief at the Las Vegas disaster.
The other soldier, who had maintained communication with Livelsberger since their deployment, stated that he was unsure if the Cybertruck explosion was influenced in any way by the frequent attacks that were a part of the unit’s job.
Some parallels to the attack in New Orleans:
The explosion came just after a fatal incident in New Orleans early on Wednesday morning, when a driver with US military experience crashed a rented pickup truck into a group of people celebrating New Year’s on Bourbon Street, killing fourteen people.
The attacker, identified as a Texas Army veteran, had an ISIS flag in his car and was killed in a firefight with police following the attack. According to investigators, he claimed to have joined the terror group in pre-attack footage.
According to Turo, an online platform that allows car owners to rent their automobiles, its service was used to rent vehicles involved in the sad events that occurred in Las Vegas and New Orleans, and it is assisting the authorities in their investigation.
According to a Turo representative who talked to CNN, “We do not believe that either renter involved in the Las Vegas and New Orleans attacks had a criminal background that would have identified them as a security threat.”
There is no documentation that the two men served in the same unit or in the same years, despite the fact that they were both assigned to Fort Liberty in North Carolina, formerly known as Fort Bragg, McMahill stated Thursday. According to McMahill, the men did not serve in the same province or unit in Afghanistan in 2009.
“We’re not ready to rule in or rule out anything at this time if these turn out to be just similarities, very strange similarities to have,” McMahill stated. “The computers and phones, which are typically very, very instructive and informative to us as we investigate, haven’t even been used yet.”
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that the FBI has found phones and laptops and is searching homes in connection with the events in Las Vegas and New Orleans. According to Mayorkas, there is no proof that anyone else was responsible for planning the Cybertruck incident.
Livelsberger was a member of the 10th Special Forces Group, whose members are stationed in Germany where they work with the U.S. Africa Command. Special Forces units have participated in numerous counterterrorism missions in Africa, battling local groups affiliated with ISIS and al Qaeda. He was stationed in Germany and returned to the United States on leave around Christmas, a defense official told CNN.A LinkedIn page under the name “Matt Livelsberger” shows a photo of a special forces operator wearing a helmet, goggles and snow camouflage riding a snowmobile with a semi-automatic sniper rifle mounted on it. It says Livelsberger has 19 years of experience in the Army Special Forces with a specialization in “intelligence and operations.” Law enforcement officials confirmed to CNN that they believe the site belongs to Livelsberger.
Elon Musk is thanked by police:
According to investigators, the vehicle’s body structure helped confine the explosion, which otherwise could have been much worse.
According to McMahill, the Cybertruck’s body design greatly lessened damage in the hotel valet area because the majority of the blast was aimed upward, protecting the front glass of the building from breaking.
Since the valet received the most of the blast, the damage inside was significantly reduced because it was a Cybertruck. “Out and up through the truck,” he said. “You’ll notice that the blast that they were parked directly in front of did not even shatter the front glass doors at the Trump hotel.”
McMahill continued, “I have to thank Elon Musk specifically,” adding that the CEO of Tesla Motors provided authorities with “quite a bit of additional information,” including video sent directly from its charging stations to aid in their tracking of the driver.
“We now have confirmation that the explosion was not related to the vehicle itself and was caused by very large fireworks and/or a bomb carried in the bed of the rented Cybertruck,” Musk wrote in a post on X.
In reference to the automaker’s system that gathers and communicates data about a vehicle’s performance and status in real time and can track the distance traveled and monitor mileage, among other capabilities, Musk continued, “All vehicle telemetry was positive at the time of the explosion.”
The ramifications of the hotel’s namesake and the Tesla car were also mentioned by officials.
McMahill, the sheriff of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, stated on Wednesday that it was a Tesla truck and that Elon Musk was collaborating with President-elect Trump. He also mentioned that it was the Trump tower. “There are clearly issues to be concerned about there, and we are still looking into that.”
As Trump prepares to enter a second term in office, Musk has become a significant figure in his inner circle. In an effort to reduce government expenditure, the president-elect has appointed the computer tycoon and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy to lead a new Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
