Las Vegas police: Driver shot himself before Cybertruck explosion
The Metropolitan Police Department said Thursday afternoon that the driver of the vehicle that exploded at the Trump International in Las Vegas was officially identified by the Clark County coroner’s office as Matthew Livelsberger, 37, who shot himself in the head seconds before the explosion.
Sheriff Kevin McMahill said at a news conference Thursday that authorities believed Livelsberger was the “person of interest” in the explosion. He was a military operations sergeant who served in the U.S. Army as a Green Beret, McMahill said.
Seven people suffered minor injuries in the explosion. Police said the motive is not clear.
Spencer Evans, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Las Vegas division, said Thursday that determining the motive “remains our number one priority.”
Evans said investigators are looking into foreign and domestic leads.
“We know we have a bombing, absolutely, and it’s a bombing that certainly has factors that raise concern,” he said. “It’s not lost on us that it’s in front of the Trump building, that it’s a Tesla vehicle. But we don’t have information at this point that definitively tells us or suggests it was because of this particular ideology or any of the reasoning behind it.”
President-elect Donald Trump and Tesla CEO Elon Musk are close allies.
Military service
Livelsberger, 37, had served in Germany as a U.S. Army service member but was on leave in Colorado when the explosion occurred, according to McMahill. The sheriff said he lived in Colorado Springs and also spent time at Fort Carson, Colorado.
Livelsberger was on active duty from January 2006 to March 2011, according to an Army spokesperson. Livelsberger then joined the National Guard from March 2011 to July 2012, followed by the Army Reserve from July 2012 to December 2012, the spokesperson said in an email. He entered the active duty Army in December 2012 and was an Army Special Operations soldier. At the time of his death, Livelsberger was on leave from the Army Special Operations Command, the Army said.
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McMahill said investigators found military identification, a passport, an iPhone, a smart watch and guns at the scene.
A LinkedIn page for a person named Matt Livelsberger in the Colorado Springs area indicated that he had served as a team sergeant for the Army’s Special Forces, or Green Berets. The profile said he had received a 2016 “Meritorious Honor Award” from the U.S. Department of State and listed “Loitering munitions,” “Robotics” and “Explosives Detection” as part of his skill set.
Online court records show that in 2017, Sara Livelsberger filed for divorce against Matthew Livelsberger in El Paso County, Colorado, where Colorado Springs is located. The divorce appeared to have finalized the following year, according to a court docket. Attempts to reach Sara Livelsberger were unsuccessful.
Livelsberger graduated from Bucyrus High School in Ohio, where he was an honors student, in 2005 and lettered in football and baseball, according to a 2006 story in the Bucyrus Telegraph-Forum and a 2004 honor roll list in the paper. He enlisted in the military after a football injury, a later article said.
“Livelsberger has completed training with sharpshooter status and shown exemplary leadership skills, which has rewarded him a position as a platoon leader,” the 2006 article said.
A 2009 story in the Telegraph-Forum said he was trying to help children in Afghanistan by collecting clothing and toys.
Livelsberger claimed to have received the Bronze Star, without valor, for other humanitarian efforts in a 2010 Mansfield, Ohio News Journal article.
Path of the truck
Authorities tracked Livelsberger’s movements from Colorado to Las Vegas and determined that he was the person driving the vehicle, according to the sheriff.
“We still have only ever seen him in this vehicle and we’re not aware of any other subjects involved in this particular case,” he said.
— FBI Denver (@FBIDenver) January 2, 2025
On Wednesday, McMahill said that the truck was rented in Colorado and arrived in Las Vegas around 7:30 a.m. It drove up and down Las Vegas Boulevard before pulling into the Trump property, he said.
McMahill played a drone video that showed gasoline canisters, camp fuel cans and firework mortars in the bed of the truck.
At Thursday’s news conference, McMahill played video of the vehicle driving on Las Vegas Boulevard and into the valet area of the property.
The Cybertruck was rented in Denver on Dec. 28, he said.
Two days later, according to Kenny Cooper, assistant special agent in charge of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives San Francisco field division, Livelsberger purchased two semi-automatic guns.
On Dec. 31, the truck charged in Trinidad, Colo., Las Vegas, N.M., Albuquerque, Gallup, N.M., according to the sheriff. Then, on New Year’s Day, it charged in Holbrook, Flagstaff, and Kingman, Ariz. before arriving in Las Vegas, where it was first spotted at 7:29 a.m., he said.
The explosion took place around 8:40 a.m. Cooper said the components primarily consisted of consumer fireworks, and also included fuel enhancers.
“The level of sophistication is not what we would expect from an individual with this type of military experience,” he said.
New Orleans attack
Livelsberger had served at the base previously known as Fort Bragg in North Carolina, where Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar, the driver who rammed a truck into a crowd in New Orleans, killing at least 15 hours before the explosion, also spent time, according to McMahill.
There is no record they served in the same unit or at the same time, he said, but they both served in Afghanistan in 2009.
President Joe Biden said Thursday that investigators have not found evidence of a connection between the Las Vegas explosion and the New Orleans attack, but that he “directed them to keep looking.”
According to Jeremy Schwartz, acting special agent in charge for the FBI’s Las Vegas office, authorities also are trying to determine whether the explosion was an act of terrorism but believe it was an “isolated incident.”
Christopher Raia, deputy assistant director of the FBI’s counterterrorism division, said Thursday that the investigation has found that Shamsud-Din Jabbar acted alone and aligned himself with the Islamic State group.
McMahill said authorities are investigating the possibility of a connection between the two events but have not found any indication that the Las Vegas explosion was tied to IS.
The truck that exploded in Las Vegas and the truck used in New Orleans were both rented from the Turo app, a “coincidence” authorities will continue to examine, McMahill said.
“Law enforcement activity”
Authorities in Colorado announced Thursday that they were conducting “law enforcement activity” at a home in Colorado Springs in connection with the explosion.
In a statement on X, FBI Denver stated that its agency, the Denver Field Division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Colorado Springs Police Department are “conducting law enforcement activity at a residential address in Colorado Springs.”
The downtown Las Vegas casino core had an increased police presence Thursday morning.
Las Vegas Mayor Shelley Berkley said in a Wednesday post on X about the explosion that the Metropolitan Police Department and city marshals would “remain on extra alert with a significant officer presence on the Strip, in the downtown and throughout the valley for the next 2 days.”
McMahill said he had authorized Metro’s New Year’s Eve staffing plan of more than 1,000 officers to continue for the next two days “just to ensure that even if we had a copycat or someone else wanted to go up and conduct an attack, that we have the appropriate and available resources to handle it.”
The Federal Aviation Administration has issued temporary flight restrictions for Las Vegas and New Orleans, citing “Special Security Reasons.”
Related: Latest news on the Las Vegas Cybertruck explosion
If you’re thinking about suicide, or are worried about a friend or loved one, help is available 24/7 by calling or texting the Lifeline network at 988. Live chat is available at 988lifeline.org. Additionally, the Crisis Text Line is a free, national service available 24/7. Text HOME to 741741.
Contact Noble Brigham at nbrigham@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BrighamNoble on X. The Associated Press and Review-Journal photographer Kevin Cannon contributed to this report.
