A driver had rented a Tesla Cybertruck in Colorado and appeared to arrive in Las Vegas around sunrise on New Year's Day.
Cameras showed the truck in Las Vegas at 7:30 a.m., authorities said. The driver drove up and down the Strip for about an hour before turning into the covered driveway in front of the Trump International Hotel.
About 17 seconds later, a massive explosion rocked the truck, creating a ball of flames that stunned people in and around the hotel. Seven people were injured. But when police got into the truck, they discovered a body burned beyond recognition. Authorities later determined that 37-year-old Matthew Livelsberger likely fatally shot himself shortly before the explosion.
The case is being investigated as a possible act of terrorism, although officials say many questions remain about the incident and the motive for the violence.
Here's what we know:
A quiet morning in Las Vegas rocked by an explosion
Livelsberger rented the Cybertruck in Denver on Saturday and charged the vehicle at Tesla charging stations throughout Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona, said Sheriff Kevin McMahill of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.
The vehicle was last tracked around 5:33 a.m. Wednesday in Kingman, Arizona, and was first spotted around 7:29 a.m. in Las Vegas
A surveillance camera captured the vehicle driving past the valet parking area of the Trump Hotel an hour before the incident, before returning, stopping at the front door and exploding.
“The moment we were in the lobby and about to open the revolving doors, the explosion happened, we saw the Cybertruck there and in a split second we shouted 'Boom!' The first super-large”, Oscar Terol, said Fox10 News in Las Vegas. “We both fell. My wife was in front of me and after that there were a lot of explosions.”
At a nearby hotel, Lee Odom told the station: “It wasn't like, boom, it was like, boom, and then it kind of echoed and echoed, but it certainly wasn't one bang.”
Video of the explosion shows what appears to be fireworks surrounding the truck.
Authorities found camp fuel and gasoline cans and fireworks mortars in the back of the truck.
The explosion did not significantly damage the Cybertruck and “escaped outward and upward,” said Kenny Cooper, special agent in charge of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Nor did it shatter the glass doors of the Trump hotel lobby nearby; The supply of explosives in the Cybertruck was intended to fuel a larger explosion.
McMahill said in a news conference Thursday that a charred body was found in the vehicle and they were able to determine the identity based on military ID, credit cards and passport found at the scene.
“His body is burned beyond recognition and I still don't have 100 percent confirmation that this is the person in our vehicle,” McMahill said. “I will not be coming back until I have confirmation through DNA or medical records that it is indeed the person in the vehicle.”
The driver was a Green Beret
Livelsberger was in the U.S. Army and served as a Green Beret Operations Sergeant, spending most of his time at Ft. spent. Carson in Colorado and in Germany, according to authorities. At the time of his death he was on approved leave from Germany.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Livelsberger worked as a special operations manager for the U.S. Army since 2006 before moving to remote and autonomous systems manager two months ago.
On his Facebook profile, Livelsberger once criticized the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan in 2021. He called it the “biggest foreign policy failure in the history of the United States.”
He entered active duty in the Army in December 2012 and ran for the post of Green Beret after serving in the Army Reserve and National Guard.
The agency said in a statement that it is “in full cooperation with federal and state law enforcement agencies but will not comment on ongoing investigations for political reasons.”
The FBI, ATF and Colorado Springs Police Department served a search warrant at a Colorado Springs home Thursday morning in connection with the Las Vegas explosion. Federal authorities declined to provide further details.
Looking for connections to the New Orleans attack, but no direct connections yet
The Tesla explosion occurred hours after a man drove another truck through a crowded New Orleans street, killing 14 people.
Both Livelsberger and Shamsud-Din Jabbar, the suspect in the New Orleans attack, previously served at the Ft. Bragg, now known as Ft. Liberty in North Carolina, but it is not clear whether they served at the same time or in the same unit. Both men also served in Afghanistan in 2009, although officials say they have no evidence they were in the same location in the country or in the same unit, McMahill said. Both used the car rental company Turo to rent their vehicles.
However, officials stressed that they have not yet found any direct links to any kind of conspiracy, although the investigation is still ongoing.
Investigators are checking whether the driver of a Tesla vehicle specifically targeted one of Trump's properties. Tesla CEO Elon Musk is a close adviser to the president-elect.
Federal investigators are pursuing leads at home and abroad, including executing search warrants and interviewing witnesses, said FBI Special Agent in Charge in Las Vegas Spencer Evans.
“Investigative activity is literally taking place around the globe,” Evans said. “During this special time… we must focus on what we know and what we don't know. It's not lost on us that there is a Tesla vehicle in front of the Trump Building, but we have no information at this point that would definitively tell us or suggest that it is due to that particular ideology or any of the thinking behind it lies.”