FBI and police are searching for a motive as to why a decorated U.S. Army Green Beret blew himself up in a Tesla Cybertruck on New Year's Day outside of President-elect Donald Trump's hotel in Las Vegas.
Although the body found inside the Cybertruck was "burnt beyond recognition" and investigators are still waiting on DNA or medical records to positively identify the man, Las Vegas police and FBI investigators reportedly said all evidence points to the person being Matthew Livelsberger, 37, of Colorado Springs, Colorado.
FBI agents searched Livelsberger's home in northeast Colorado Springs on Thursday, The Denver Post reported, as they began to piece together his movements and dig for a motive — which they have yet to find.
"We know we have a bombing, absolutely, and it's a bombing that certainly has factors that raise concerns," Las Vegas FBI special agent in charge Spencer Evans said during a news conference, according to the Post. "It's not lost on us that it's in front of the Trump building and that it's a Tesla vehicle, but we don't have information at this point that definitively tells us ... it was because of this particular ideology or any reasoning behind it."
Investigators on Thursday outlined Livelsberger's movements in the days before the bombing. He rented the Cybertruck through the car-rental app Turo in Denver on Dec. 28. Police tracked him on his trip through his stops at Tesla charging stations, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Sheriff Kevin McMahill said at the news conference.
He legally purchased two semi-automatic handguns on Monday — guns later found in the truck, said Kenny Cooper, assistant agent in charge of the San Francisco Field Division for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, according to the Post.
On Wednesday, cameras captured the truck driving to the Trump hotel valet at about 7:35 a.m. local time. The driver quickly pulled away and spent 45 minutes in a parking lot at a nearby business before driving back to the hotel, arriving at 8:39 a.m. The explosion immediately followed.
Livelsberger has no criminal history in Colorado, according to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, the Post reported. El Paso County marriage records showed Livelsberger remarried in 2022 after a divorce in 2018.
Investigators believe Livelsberger died by suicide through a gunshot to the head moments before the explosion outside the hotel. A handgun was found near his feet inside the vehicle. Livelsberger's military ID, passport, phone, credit cards, and a smart watch were found in the vehicle, alongside the two guns he recently purchased and undetonated fireworks, McMahill said.
The explosion in Las Vegas came hours after Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar, 42, another U.S. Army veteran, rammed a truck into a crowd in New Orleans' French Quarter, killing at least 14 people before being shot dead by police. The FBI on Thursday said there is no "definitive link" between the two incidents and that Jabbar acted alone.
Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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