Las Vegas Trump Hotel Cybertruck Driver Shot Himself in the Head Before Explosion
The FBI has been investigating the Las Vegas explosion as a possible act of terrorism.
***I will update this post as information comes out.
Driver Shot in Head
*UPDATE 4:08 PM* It’s getting me more suspicious.
The driver, believed to be Matthew Livelsberger, shot himself in the head before the cybertruck exploded.
Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Sheriff Kevin McMahill also said authorities have been able to identify Livelsberger as the person in the car. They only know that he rented the car. From CBS News:
At a briefing Thursday, Sheriff Kevin McMahill of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department referred to the driver of the truck as the subject of the investigation, and said there are no other subjects at this time.
The driver who died was the only person in the vehicle when it went up in flames. He is also the only person known by police to have been inside the 2024 model Cybertruck since it was rented, according to the sheriff. But the condition of the body has prevented law enforcement from making a definitive identification until they receive dental records and DNA test results.
“His body is burnt beyond recognition, and I do still not have confirmation 100% that that is the individual that was inside of our vehicle,” McMahill said. Investigators said Livelsberger’s military ID, passport and credit cards were found in the vehicle, along with several firearms.
However, McMahill also said the driver had the same tattoos as Livelsberger. From Fox News:
“There are two tattoos, one of which was on the stomach and one of which is on the arm that we can see bits and pieces of it, as in comparison to what it is that we now know he had, on his body,” Sheriff Kevin McMahill of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said Thursday.
“That has given us a lot of confidence that this is, in fact, the same person, as well as of which the clearly obvious, which is the credit cards, the military identification, the passport,” he added.
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Identification of Person Who Rented the Cybertruck
The FBI identified the driver of the exploding cybertruck in front of Trump’s Las Vegas hotel on New Year’s Day as active-duty U.S. Army soldier Matthew Livelsberger.
Livelsberger and Shamsud Din Jabbar, the man behind the New Orleans terror attack, spent time at Fort Bragg. Authorities could not find any time their assignments overlapped at the base.
Jabbar committed his attack hours before Livelsberger’s car exploded.
Both men rented the cars from Turo. The authorities have been investigating for any possible links between the two.
From The Associated Press:
Two law enforcement officials identified the man inside the futuristic-looking pickup truck as Matthew Livelsberger. The officials spoke to the AP on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss an ongoing investigation.
Three U.S. officials said Livelsberger was an active-duty Army member who spent time at the base formerly known as Fort Bragg, a massive Army base in North Carolina that is home to Army special forces command. The officials also spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose details of his service.
The FBI has been investigating the Las Vegas explosion as a possible act of terrorism.
According to The Denver Post, Livelsberger “has had multiple Colorado Springs addresses registered to him since 2019.”
Agents and local police searched one Colorado Springs residence on Thursday. No one would confirm if Livelsberger resided in the home.
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Livelsberger parked the Tesla in front of a Trump hotel to make a statement against Musk and Trump. He could’ve gotten out of the vehicle before it exploded if he had wanted to. Most likely he committed suicide.
Suicide bombers usually do…
His cause of death was a self imposed gunshot to the noggin.
The FBI found it was suicide after finding two gunshot wounds to the right temple. The firearm was found in his left hand…
Video footage shows he was attempting to hang himself from his rear view mirror when a nice gentleman from the FBI came along and offered his Glock.
True. But, the guy’s MOS was 18Z; he was an Team Leader in a Green Beret unit . Building a remote detonator would have been child-play’s for him. Very odd for a guy with that skillset to choose to shoot himself in the head, presumably then using a dead man’s switch to trigger the detonation….unless he was really, really suicidal more than anything else. It’s all very odd. I’ve known a LOT of PTSD sufferers over the last couple decades. None of them have gone out like this even though many had CVs nearly identical to this guy’s. I’ll be curious to see the results of his tox-screen.
As a Master Sergeant, an E-8 he, like every other Army E-8, got the Zulu (Z) designator appended. All the 18 series MOS feed into the 18Z when they are promoted to E-8. I believe he was an 18X track which is the ‘simple’ 18 series MOS.
It is also the track for the guys who go straight into SOF v spending a few years in regular Army, non SOF units. Most of these guys are bit older, are college graduates, were/are college athletes. Very simplified, they sign a contract to more/less go to basic, then airborne school, then a selection course. If they make it then they go to the SF Qualification Course. If they make it through that then they get a pretty much automatic promotion to Staff Sergeant, E-6. Then they pick/get assigned (often volunTOLD) and go to another SF MOS producing course. X is the shortest and least ‘complex’. Again this is over simplified.
We had a bunch of these guys during GWOT. Teams got a bit unbalanced. We still need guys who have been in the ‘real’ Army. Guys who have half a decade or so as a Medic or a Commo guy or EOD or whatever. Heck even S4 supply guys. The reason is Army SF isn’t primarily about being a super soldier (though they are) but about providing real world Advising/teaching to the forces of other Nations with a degree of emphasis on insurgency and counter insurgency missions/operations. Typically a team is expected to be able to advise and more/less run a battalion.
Why is that potentially important? He could have come into the Army already somewhat indoctrinated via college. His only experience would be high operating tempo for many years of deploy 3-6 ish months, return, train up for 9-12 ish months, redeploy rinse and repeat. I suspect this guy had issues and as many Soldiers do kept them to himself. So long as you perform the Army won’t make any real effort to find out. Unless you self report mental issues/crisis nothing will be done TO you/your career nor FOR you.
“”Building a remote detonator””
The fireworks come with something called a “fuse”. Light the fuse, shoot yourself, go boom.
Right. My point is if he wasn’t suicidal but wanted to blow something up, he had many options available to him.
None of them have gone out like this even though many had CVs nearly identical to this guy’s.
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have known a few myself–two of them did take themselves out with their sidearms–one of them took his kids with him as he didn’t want them living with their mother
something triggered this guy–physical/terminal diagnosis–depression–loss of a loved one–many possibilities
have not known one who decided to take themselves out in a public display with fireworks in vegas
Me neither. Most have done it in complete isolation, in my experience.
Something doesn’t add up. If he really was a Special Forces Operator why didn’t he build a better IED? You telling me he thought the gun powder would do a better job than ammonium nitrate fertilizer…or tannerite? Something is off about this story
If he’s broke and moving around a lot how did he afford EXPENSIVE fireworks? Also, unless he got them from an Indian reservation ( or several to mask a bulk buy) he would have had to buy them last July….long before the election. Why buy for a plan that want a certainty?
He must have left social media postings too as he was obviously savvy enough to use the internet to rent a cybertruck. What in the Manchurian Candidate Hell is going on here
He didn’t want to be burnt alive so he shot himself in the head first.
He also could have been suicided prior to arrival, if the truck was remotely driven to the location.
That seems like a distinct possibility, even probability. And the person who died may not even be the person we think it was.
I think to get the attention they crave they have to target schools, where there’s a better news narrative groove for soap opera.
I saw on twitter that the golf course assassin also spent time at ft. Bragg.
I didn’t realize he was a vet. But, Bragg is gigantic. I was a Marine officer and even I’ve been to Bragg several times. Anyone who was in a SOCOM billet could find themselves at Bragg at various times throughout their career.
I was at Bragg, my daughter and her husband were at Bragg, wife’s dad and her 1st husband were there. In fact, it would be hard to find any Army that had not spent time there. Don’t read too much into it
I was GA Air Guard and I spent time at Bragg.
That wouldn’t preclude the possibility that there is/was an active cell at Bragg working to radicalize military members, and it wouldn’t have to be run by some clandestine terrorist organization. His wife, according to reports, was a virulent Trump hater, and there’s no telling what sort of organizations they might have been exposed to.
“Authorities could not find any time their assignments overlapped at the base.”
Find out if they attended the same mosque while at the same base. It’s not necessary for them to have been at the same base at the same time. (I know, we don’t know if this guy was motivated by Islam, but Islamists sure love their suicide bombers, and coincidences with the NOLA bombing make Islam a potential motivator in the LV situation too.)
Yup. That’s more or less what I had in mind by “cell”.
There is something strange taking place. I live just outside Ft Jackson here in lovely Columbia, SC and I have noticed all the foreign-appearing recruits coming through since 2008 has tripled. You don’t see pimply-faced kids in ill-fitting clothing anymore.
You’re simply noticing the emerging reality of the new US racial demographics. When I entered active service in the 1980s, my TBS class was >90% white. When I left active service (just before the end of Obama’s 1st Term), the TBS classes were 70% white. Today, TBS classes are less than 45% white. The change over the last decade has been absolutely profound, something most people just don’t realize. The enlisted recruit classes are even more ‘diverse.’ My son is now a 1stLt. His platoon is only 40% white (European ancestry).
This happened to the Romans. Didn’t end well.
“The authorities have been investigating for any possible links between the two”
Ha ha. No need to investigate, the FBI alread said “no one else was involved. The muslim in New Orleans acted alone.” On page 1 of the FBI investigation manual it states, “Muslims always act alone.”
And we never do learn the motives.
It it involves muslims, there are three things you will hear:
a. It’s a mystery. We don’t know the motive.
b. Islam is not like this. They were radicalized
c. And lone wolf. They acted alone.
“Livelsberger and Shamsud Din Jabbar, the man behind the New Orleans terror attack, spent time at Fort Bragg. Authorities could not find any time their assignments overlapped at the base.”
I may be nitpicking, but the wording of that paragraph seems to imply that the fact that the two men were assigned to the same Army post, even if at different times, is somehow significant. It may be, but that logic suggests that I am somehow suspicious for no reason other than I was assigned to Fort Bragg for two years in the late 1980s, along with tens of thousands of other military personnel and their family members.
Again, I may be nitpicking, but only the Army has soldiers. Just as only the Marine Corps has Marines, the Navy has sailors, the Air Force has airmen, the Coast Guard has coast guardsmen, and the Space Force has guardians. Specifying the branch of service in the headline is unnecessary.
(Yes, I have pet peeves.)
That would make sense, if the only soldiers in the US were US soldiers. But now we have ISIS, PRC, even Tren de Aragua…
The cartels employ many ex-servicemen.
A correlation, but not necessarily a causation.
“Both men rented the cars from Turo. The authorities have been investigating for any possible links between the two.”
Turo is to cars as AirBnB is to houses. People make money renting their own cars to other people.
I bet this business takes a solid hit this week, as new and existing renters get cold feet. They’re in the middle of an IPO too, bad news for them.
It baffles me that he did this with penny-ante “explosives.” and a Cybertruck, which I despise but which is a very sturdy vehicle. Everyone’s lucky that he wasn’t nearly as serious a terrorist as the Houston Muslim in New Orleans.
blaze of glory
Is it strange they only identified him with the IDs they found and a tattoo? Why wouldn’t they verify with either dental records or DNA?
Don’t know. As an active-duty soldier, his dental records are digitized and very easily retrievable by the Feds.
I may be wrong, but the more I see about this the more I think he wanted to end himself in an attention-getting way (maybe lashing out against Musk and/or Trump) but didn’t want to hurt anyone else in the process. Hence a bomb that was more flash than smash in a vehicle that channeled the blast away from innocent bystanders. He also picked a time when practically nobody was around.
New York Post just wrote that his wife had left him days before because she found out he was cheating on her.
https://nypost.com/2025/01/02/us-news/cybertruck-bomber-matthew-livelsbergers-wife-broke-up-with-him-days-before-explosion-outside-trump-hotel-in-las-vegas-sources/
Another article stated he was texted a former girlfriend and other former girlfriends days before he did this. https://gazette.com/news/matthew-livelsberger-cybertruck-trump-hotel-las-vegas-attack-explosion-text-messages/article_fb8eff80-c619-525c-9cfd-c1c3fe07cfea.html
Interesting and excellent thread.
How did he shoot himself before detonation? Timer switch? If he was military trained explosives expert, why didn’t he use more explosives to blow away the face of lobby of the hotel? Or why not ram the vehicle through the front doors of the lobby?
My guess is a deadman’s switch.
As far as why. not more or higher quality explosives, it’s looking more and more as if he wasn’t trying to hurt anyone other than himself, just to send a. message with his death.
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