In July, Matthew Alan Livelsberger was posting to Facebook photos of himself proudly posing with his newborn child. He was in the middle of a highly decorated career in the U.S. military. Six months later, the 37-year-old was dead and named as the man whose Tesla Cybertruck exploded on Wednesday outside the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas.
After driving up and down Las Vegas Boulevard for an hour, Livelsberger pulled into the Trump hotel and died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound before the explosion, according to authorities, who found the newly purchased handgun he used at his feet, along with a passport, military ID, credit cards and iPhone and smartwatch.
Clark County Sheriff Kevin McMahill said Thursday that the body removed from the Cybertruck was “burnt beyond recognition.”
McMahill said investigators didn’t think there was any additional threat related to the explosion. They were, however, still examining whether Livelsberger had ties to any terrorist networks.
“I’m comfortable calling it a suicide with the bombing that occurred immediately thereafter,” McMahill said. “I’m not giving it any other labels.”
On Thursday, Army officials were exploring whether Livelsberger was having any personal problems as they scoured his unit, trying to untangle the mystery of how or why a model soldier with a stellar record could potentially be tied to a terrorist event. So far, they remain baffled. He was a decorated master sergeant in the U.S. Special Forces—an Army Green Beret—and a top student who betrayed no signs of distress when talking to members of his unit just a few days ago, according to defense officials.
Livelsberger, who had ties to Colorado Springs, Colo., had been on vacation leave from his base in Germany when the explosion occurred and was due back on Jan. 4. Authorities on Thursday disclosed more about his actions leading to Las Vegas. He rented the Cybertruck in Denver on Dec. 28 and legally bought two handguns on Dec. 30, according to Kenneth Cooper, the assistant special agent in charge of the San Francisco office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
He soon set off for Nevada. Tracking his movements through Tesla charging stations, authorities said Livelsberger drove the futuristic truck from Colorado Springs to Las Vegas, with stops including Albuquerque on Dec. 31, and Kingman, Ariz., in the early morning hours of Jan. 1. With fuel canisters and large firework mortars in the back, the vehicle arrived in Las Vegas about 7:30 a.m. local time Wednesday. It was parked for roughly 17 seconds before it exploded.
Authorities have said they have no motive yet and are interviewing people across the globe. Crucially, they have yet to find any evidence that Livelsberger crossed paths during his nearly two-decade military career with Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a veteran who used a pickup truck to mow dozens of New Year’s revelers on Bourbon Street in New Orleans in the early hours of Wednesday morning, killing 14 people, in an operation apparently in support of ISIS.
Given the timing and other apparent similarities—both events involved veterans, both involved pickup trucks rented from the same online platform, both were directed at targets laden with symbolism—speculation has arisen that they might be linked. Yet a defense official played down that possibility on Thursday, saying “There is no apparent tie between the two.”
Their military careers followed different arcs: Jabbar was an IT and HR specialist for the Army. Special Forces troops like Livelsberger, by contrast, are part of a smaller, elite force that is usually insulated from other parts of the Army. Even though U.S. officials said the two men appeared to have been at the same large North Carolina base at one point, they found no evidence that they ever crossed paths.