Las Vegas Cybertruck Explosion and Louisiana Attack Linked: Terrorists Served at Same Military Base
The driver of the Tesla Cybertruck that exploded outside the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas was an active-duty Army Green Beret stationed at the same military base as the driver of the pickup truck that struck New Orleans on the morning of January 1, driving into a crowd of holiday revelers. Details about the Las Vegas blast and the identity of the suspect were being sought CNN и Newsweek.
Photo: Wilson100 | Dreamstime.com
The driver of the Tesla Cybertruck that exploded outside the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas on Wednesday has been identified as Matthew Alan Leavelsberger, an active-duty Green Beret, a law enforcement source familiar with the investigation said. The U.S. Army Special Forces, known as the Green Berets, bill themselves as an elite unit that specializes in guerrilla warfare and special operations overseas.
Livelsberger held the rank of Master Sergeant in the U.S. Army Special Operations Forces Operations Command., which is a senior sergeant, according to four U.S. officials. He was on active duty in Germany with the 10th Special Operations Group but was on leave at the time of the incident, three officials said.
On the subject: Cybertruck Explodes Near Trump Hotel in Las Vegas: Police Suspect Terrorism
Las Vegas Sheriff Kevin McMahill said Jan. 2 that the driver shot himself in the head before the explosion that injured seven people outside the Trump Hotel. Although McMahill and other officials referred to the driver only as a “subject” and a “person of interest,” they showed a photo of Leavelsberger and named him at a news conference.
McMahill said authorities are not identifying Leavelsberger as the man found inside the Cybertruck because the body was burned beyond recognition. DNA testing is required for formal identification.
McMahill added that authorities are "confident that this is, in fact, the same person" because the driver had two tattoos on his stomach and arm that were also on Leavelsberger. Leavelsberger's wife identified the tattoos, a law enforcement official told CNN.
Spencer Evans, special agent in charge of the FBI's Las Vegas office, said the driver's motive remains unclear and authorities are not aware of any ties "to any terrorist organizations around the world."
The blast bore some similarities to the January 1 attack on New Orleans revelers: a New Year's Day attack carried out using a truck rented through the website Turo. Finally, both suspects had military backgrounds. Authorities said they were investigating possible links between the two incidents, but repeatedly called the Vegas blast an "isolated incident."
"There is no definitive connection at this time between the attacks in New Orleans and the Las Vegas attacks," FBI Deputy Assistant Director Christopher Raia said on January 2.
How the attack was prepared
The Cybertruck was rented Dec. 28 in Denver and stopped at several Tesla charging stations in Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Nevada before entering Las Vegas early on New Year's Day, McMahill said.
The truck was first spotted in the city at 7:29 a.m., driving up and down Las Vegas Boulevard before arriving at the Trump Hotel, where a device operated by the driver detonated a combination of fireworks, gas tanks and camping fuel in the back of the vehicle, police said.
CCTV footage released by police showed the moment the truck exploded. Footage posted on social media showed the vehicle engulfed in smoke as it was doused with water.
During a news conference, police shared footage showing charred gasoline canisters and fireworks launchers found in the wreckage. Authorities are still working to access footage from cameras inside the Cybertruck that likely recorded video during the incident, McMahill said.
Guests staying at the Trump International Hotel at the time of the blast said windows shook more than 40 stories up. Guests saw smoke billowing from the stairwells and coming out of the elevator doors. The elevator was stopped, and guests were forced to stay on their floors.
On January 2, damage from the explosion was visible in the Trump Hotel parking lot. Part of the ceiling was blackened by smoke, and a three-foot hole gaped in the gold canopy.
The FBI Denver, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Colorado Springs Police Department conducted "law enforcement activities" Thursday at Leavelsberger's Colorado Springs home, the FBI said.
What is known about the driver
A family member and a former Army colleague described Livelsberger as a highly decorated combat veteran whose special forces experience and explosives skills belied the idea of a crime committed with amateur fireworks. Livelsberger was also a patriot who had great sympathy for the president-elect, according to people who knew him.
“When President Trump was in office, Livelsberger would comment approvingly on his Facebook page about Trump’s words and actions and how he was helping the military,” said a relative who asked not to be named. “Matt had a lot of respect for Trump, you could tell he loved the guy.”
Livelsberger was not affiliated with any political party, according to the Colorado Secretary of State's voter registration database.
A Green Beret comrade of Livelsberger's who served with him in Afghanistan said the primary objective of their mission was to disrupt a network of Taliban-linked forces that were detonating car bombs in and around Kabul in an attempt to destabilize the situation.
A fellow military officer said he was shocked by the Las Vegas incident, especially given Leavelsberger's impressive background in communications, information technology and tactical unmanned aerial vehicles.
He said he didn't know whether the Cybertruck explosion was in any way inspired by the types of attacks their unit had thwarted in Afghanistan.
Livelsberger was a member of the 10th Special Forces Group, whose members worked in Germany with U.S. Africa Command. The special forces units participated in numerous counterterrorism missions in Africa, battling local groups linked to ISIS and al-Qaida. Livelsberger returned to the U.S. on leave on Christmas Eve, a defense official said.
A LinkedIn page under the name “Matt Leavelsberger” features a photo of a special forces soldier wearing a helmet, goggles, and snow camouflage while sitting on a snowmobile and holding a semiautomatic rifle with a scope. It lists Leavelsberger as having 19 years of experience in the Army Special Forces, with a specialty in “intelligence and special operations.”
"He was a regular guy," Livelsberger's neighbors say.
People who lived next door to a Colorado Springs, Colorado, townhouse believed to belong to Matthew Livelsberger described him as a normal person who posed no threat.
Cindy Helwig, who lives diagonally across the street from the home authorities searched, said she last saw her neighbor, whom she knew as Matthew, about two weeks ago when he asked if she had a tool he needed to fix his SUV.
Livelsberger lived in a townhouse with his wife and child. He became a father last April, a former colleague said.
The family, according to neighbors, was not very sociable.
Similar to New Orleans attack
The blast came shortly after a deadly attack in New Orleans, where a driver, also a former soldier, plowed a rented pickup truck into a crowd celebrating New Year's Eve on Bourbon Street early on the morning of Jan. 1, killing 14 people.
The man who was killed in a shootout with police after the attack was identified as an Army veteran from Texas and had an ISIS flag in his car. In videos taken before the attack, he said he had joined the terrorist group, authorities said.
Turo, which operates an online platform for car owners to rent out their vehicles, said its service was used to rent vehicles involved in the deadly attacks in New Orleans and Las Vegas, and it is cooperating with authorities. “We do not believe the renters involved in the Las Vegas and New Orleans attacks had criminal histories that would identify them as security risks,” a Turo spokesperson said.
Both men served at Fort Liberty in North Carolina, formerly known as Fort Bragg. However, there is no record of them serving in the same unit or during the same years, McMahill said Jan. 2. The men also served in Afghanistan in 2009, but McMahill clarified that they were not in the same province or unit.
"It could just be a coincidence, a very strange coincidence, so we're continuing to look into the details," McMahill said.
The FBI has begun examining the phones and laptops of suspects in the Las Vegas and New Orleans incidents, and their homes are being searched, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said. He said there was no evidence anyone else was involved in the Cybertruck incident.
Police thank Elon Musk
The blast could have been much larger if not for the vehicle's body structure, which helped contain the explosion, police said.
McMahill said the Cybertruck's body design significantly reduced damage in the hotel parking lot area, as much of the blast was directed upward.
"The fact that it was a Cybertruck really limited the damage inside the parking lot because the vehicle took most of the blast," he said. "The glass doors at the Trump Hotel weren't even damaged by the blast, even though the vehicle was parked right in front of them."
“I have to thank Elon Musk,” McMahill added, noting that the Tesla Motors CEO provided authorities with “quite a bit of additional information,” including directly sending them video from his charging stations to help in their efforts to track the driver’s path.
"We have now confirmed that the explosion was caused by a very large firework and/or bomb being transported in the back of the rental Cybertruck, and was not related to the vehicle itself," Musk said in a post on X.
"All vehicle telemetry was positive at the time of the explosion," Musk added, referring to the system that collects and transmits real-time vehicle health data and can monitor mileage and track distance traveled.
"This is a Tesla truck, and we know that Elon Musk is working with President-elect Trump, and this is Trump Tower," McMahill, the sheriff of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, said on Jan. 2.
On January 2, shortly after the Tesla Cybertruck exploded outside the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas on New Year's Day, Tesla released its fourth-quarter delivery data and saw its stock price fall.
The news adds to a rocky start to the year for Tesla, as the Cybertruck, unveiled to much fanfare in late 2023, failed to live up to investors' high expectations.
The company's disappointing delivery data weighed on its stock, with Tesla shares down 5 percent at the market open on January 2.
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High interest rates and economic uncertainty are pushing consumers to buy cheaper hybrids.
Traditional automakers are ramping up production of electric vehicles, intensifying competition in key markets such as the U.S., Europe and China. Tesla remains the market leader but is under pressure to update its aging product lineup.
Elon Musk has suggested he may sue news outlets after reports of a Tesla Cybertruck exploding outside the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas on New Year's Day. The Cybertruck explosion has sparked debate over Tesla's safety standards, which Musk has fiercely defended, criticizing suggestions that the explosion was caused by a malfunction.
The news adds to a rocky start to the year for Tesla, as the Cybertruck, unveiled to much fanfare in late 2023, has struggled to meet investor expectations.
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