The man who died in an explosion inside of a Tesla Cybertruck outside of Donald Trump’s hotel in Las Vegas hours on New Year’s Day has been identified as a U.S. Army veteran and member of the elite Green Berets.
In the early hours of Thursday morning, media outlets in Colorado named Matthew Livelsberger as the man who detonated the vehicle outside the Trump International Hotel at 8.40 a.m. on Wednesday.
Livelsberger, 37, of Colorado Springs, died in the blast, with seven others sustaining minor injuries, police said.
The incident in Las Vegas was reported shortly after 15 people were killed in New Orleans, after Shamsud-Din Jabbar – another miltary veteran – rammed a truck into New Year’s Day revellers in the city’s packed French Quarter.
On Thursday, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Sheriff Kevin McMahill said investigators were confident that Livelsberger was the person in the vehicle, though his body was “burned beyond recognition.” He added that there was evidence that he had suffered a gunshot wound to the head prior to the blast.
“Complicating this identification of this individual, we also discovered through the coroner’s office that the individual had sustained a gunshot wound to the head prior to the detonation of the vehicle. One of the handguns was found at his feet inside of the vehicle,” McMahill said.
According to a report from Denver 7, the two New Year’s Day attackers allegedly served at the same military base, Fort Bragg, and were deployed in Afghanistan around the same period.
In addition, Livelsberger and Jabbar rented their vehicles via the carsharing company, Turo, officials have said. Authorities have said that there is currently no formal connection between Jabbar and Livelsberger, as they investigate a possible link between the two men.
At the time they were fighting in the Middle East, the US had around 100,000 military personnel in Afghanistan as part of President Barack Obama’s ‘troop surge.’
According to CBS, law enforcement sources said that Livelsberger was on active duty with the Army serving in Germany and was on leave in Colorado at the time of the incident.
However, the 37-year-old’s history gives few clues about what lead to the incident in Las Vegas.
Livelsberger spent 18 of his 19-year Army career with the Special Forces, according to his Linkedin profile. He is believed to have joined the Green Berets as a communicaton’s specialist in January 2006, before becoming an operations manager and team sergeant in February 2023.
The profile picture on the account shows a man sporting winter gear armed with a rifle, standing atop of a snowmobile in mountainous terrain.
His most recent role, from November 2024, was listed as a Remote and Autonomous Systems Manager for the Army.
Livelsberger earned a summa cum laude – an award given to the students earning the highest grades in their class – after graduating from Norwich University in Vermont with a degree in Strategic Studies and Defense Analysis, according to his LinkedIn profile.
It also states he earned the Department of State Meritorious Honor Award for “interagency contributions that resulted in increased interoperability and efficiency while serving as the Operations Sergeant at Special Operations Command Forward”.
Livelsberger often commented on posts from military personnel. In a comment on one viral post from an Air Force veteran, he responded to a question noting that “the govt” was responsible for making people believe they were responsible for others’ student debt.
Erasing student debts was a signature Biden-era policy.
At the age of 22, Livelsberger began collecting clothes, toys and educational items for children and disseminating off humanitarian aid while serving a tour in Afghanistan, he told the News Journal in his native Ohio.
Appealing to US citizens for donations in Janaury, 2010, he told the outlet: “Handing out humanitarian assistance continues to be one of the few approaches of gaining the credibility and loyalty of the people of Afghanistan and I believe you are directly contributing to our success at ground level.”
His ex-wife, believed to be Sara Livelsberger, wrote on Facebook in May 2016 that she was a registered Democrat. She posted a picture of a graphic commissioned by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee appearing to show Donald Trump which read “stop bigotry”.
She captioned the post: “Perks of being a registered Democrat… I can’t wait to slap this baby on my truck.”
Sara Livelsberger shared photographs of the two together, the last was posted in 2016. The woman had another Facebook profile page but it was removed shortly after news of the Cybertruck explosion emerged.
In one image from April 2016, the pair posed for a selfie, with Livelsberger sporting a camo backpack.
In another from July 2015, Livelsberger can be seen with a tattoo of a bald eagle and the American flag on his shoulder, as he posed with a dog.
A Facebook account that appears to belong to Livelsberger shows a heavily-tattooed man holding a baby, with its profile picture updated in September 2024.
Details on the Sara Livelsberger Facebook page and information released about Livelsberger’s age match reports from officials. One post from 2015 reads: “It is my old a** husbands’s 28th birthday!”
Sources told Denver 7 that multiple addresses had been associated with Livelsberger in the area around Colorado Springs. The FBI were investigating these properties.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives have been brought in to assist, according to reports.
Authorities continue to investigate the explosion as a possible act of terror, an official with Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department told ABC News, but a potential motive is not yet known.
“At this time, we are investigating a number of leads, and I’m not prepared to release any of that information to you just yet,” McMahill said in a news conference on Wednesday evening. “I can tell you that there are seven victims right now that sustained injuries from the explosion.”
The fire has since been extinguished by the Clark County fire department.
Video posted on social media showed different angles of the explosion, which appeared to include fireworks.
Firework mortars and camp fuel canisters were found inside the truck, sources told Denver 7.
McMahill highlighted the link between Trump and Elon Musk, the Tesla founder and the president-elect’s incoming head of the unofficial Department of Government Efficiency, tasked with cutting trillions from government spending.
“Obviously a Cybertruck, the Trump hotel, there are lots of questions we have to answer,” McMahill said, underscoring the close relationship between the president-elect and Tesla founder Elon Musk
Musk took the opportunity to praise Tesla’s Cybertruck for being so sturdy that he said it helped contain the blast.
“The evil knuckleheads picked the wrong vehicle for a terrorist attack. Cybertruck actually contained the explosion and directed the blast upwards,” he wrote in a post on X.
This article has been amended to clarify the relationship between Sara Livelsberger and the suspect.
Source: independent.co.uk