Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes
- Matthew Livelsberger was found shot in the head before a Cybertruck explosion outside Trump's Las Vegas hotel.
- The explosion, involving fireworks and gasoline, injured seven people and is under investigation.
- Both the Las Vegas and New Orleans incidents involved rented vehicles from Turo.
LAS VEGAS — The person inside the Tesla Cybertruck that burst into flames outside President-elect Donald Trump's Las Vegas hotel suffered a gunshot to the head before the explosion, officials said Thursday.
Clark County Sheriff Kevin McMahill said at a news conference that a handgun was found at the feet of the man who's been identified as Matthew Livelsberger. Officials believe the shot was self-inflicted, the Associated Press reported.
Gasoline canisters and large firework mortars were packed into the Cybertruck that burst into flames shortly after a driver intentionally drove a pickup truck into crowds celebrating the new year in the French Quarter of New Orleans, according to officials.
Seven people sustained minor injuries in the explosion, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said in a statement.
Three U.S. officials said Livelsberger was an active-duty Army member, who spent time at the base formerly known as Fort Bragg, a massive Army base in North Carolina that is home to Army special forces command. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose details of his service.
The truck explosion came hours after a driver, 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar, rammed a truck into a crowd in New Orleans' famed French Quarter early on New Year's Day, killing at least 15 people before being shot to death by police. That crash was being investigated as a terrorist attack. On Thursday, the FBI said it believed Jabbar acted alone.
Jabbar, a U.S. Army veteran, also spent time at Fort Bragg, but one official said so far there is no overlap in their assignments there.
Videos taken by witnesses inside and outside the Las Vegas hotel showed the vehicle exploding and flames pouring out of it, as it sat outside the hotel at around 8:40 a.m. local time Wednesday.
A Trump spokesman did not return a request for comment Thursday on the Cybertruck incident. Eric Trump praised Las Vegas fire and law enforcement officials on Wednesday for their quick action on the explosion.
'Lots of questions'
The Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas is part of the Trump Organization, the company of President-elect Donald Trump, who will return to the White House on Jan. 20. Tesla CEO Elon Musk was a key backer of Trump in his 2024 presidential campaign and is also an adviser to the incoming president.
"Obviously, a Cybertruck, the Trump hotel — there's lots of questions that we have to answer," Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Sheriff Kevin McMahill said at a news conference.
Police said the truck was rented in Colorado, arrived in Las Vegas at around 7:30 a.m. and drove through the city's famed Strip, lined with hotels, casinos and entertainment venues, until it reached the hotel, where it stopped in the valet area.
"Detectives found gasoline canisters and large firework mortars in the bed of the truck," a police statement said.
Schwartz, the FBI special agent in charge, said it was not yet clear whether the blast was an act of terrorism.
Musk said the blast was unrelated to the 2024 model-year Cybertruck itself.
"We have now confirmed that the explosion was caused by very large fireworks and/or a bomb carried in the bed of the rented Cybertruck and is unrelated to the vehicle itself," Musk said in a post on X. "All vehicle telemetry was positive at the time of the explosion."
Telemetry involves the automatic collection of data from remote sources and transmitting it back to a central source so it can be analyzed.
Both the Cybertruck and the vehicle used in the New Orleans attack had been rented through car-sharing service Turo, McMahill said.
A Turo spokesperson said the company did not believe either of the renters of the vehicles involved in the Las Vegas and New Orleans attacks had a criminal background that would have identified them as a security threat.
The Trump Hotel was evacuated after the incident and most of the visitors were moved to another hotel.
Contributing: Harshita Meenaktshi, Jasper Ward, Ismail Shakil and Devika Nair
