The driver of the Tesla Cybertruck that exploded outside Trump International Hotel Las Vegas on New Year’s Day has been identified as active-duty U.S. Army Private Matthew Livelsberger, The Associated Press reported, citing law enforcement officials. The officials spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss an ongoing investigation.
Livelsberger, 37, has several addresses associated with him and was on leave from Germany, where he was serving with the 10th Special Forces Group.
On Wednesday, he allegedly parked the truck in front of the hotel around 8:40 a.m. local time and it exploded about 15 to 20 seconds later. The explosion killed Livelsberger and injured seven others.
Investigators photograph a Tesla Cybertruck that exploded outside the lobby of the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas on New Year’s Day. (WADE VANDERVORT/AFP via Getty Images)
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Authorities say the truck contained gasoline and camp fuel containers, as well as large fireworks mortars. Video of the incident shows the truck exploding in a fireball and also shows fireworks going off in all directions. A bystander can also be seen just meters from the truck as it goes up in flames.
An Army spokesman tells Fox News that Livelsberger began active duty with the Army in January 2006 and rose to the rank of master sergeant. Livelsberger spent time at the base formerly known as Fort Bragg, a massive Army base in North Carolina that commands the Army’s special forces.
Livelsberger joined the National Guard from March 2011 to July 2012, followed by the Army Reserve from July 2012 to December 2012. He joined the active duty Army in December 2012 and was a U.S. Army Special Operations Soldier.
Additionally, the U.S. Army Special Operations Command confirms that Livelsberger was on approved leave at the time of his death.
Records viewed by Fox News Digital show Livelsberger’s most recent address as a U.S. Armed Forces overseas mailing address. Before that, a house in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, is listed, and before that an apartment in Colorado Springs, Colorado. FBI Denver informed X on Thursday that they are at a home in Colorado Springs and will remain there for several hours. The investigation is related to the Las Vegas explosion.
One family member told CBS News that Livelsberger’s wife had not heard from him in several days.
Las Vegas sheriff Kevin McMahill said during a news conference Wednesday that the Cybertruck was rented in Colorado.
Earlier Wednesday morning, Jabbar, a 42-year-old U.S.-born citizen who lived in Texas, drove a white pickup truck into a crowd on New Orleans’ famous Bourbon Street, killing 15 people. The FBI has said it is investigating the attack as an act of terrorism.
On Thursday, the FBI in Houston said it had conducted a court-authorized search and cleared the 12000 block of Crescent Peak Drive in connection with the attack in New Orleans. The agency said there is no threat to residents of that area and could not provide further details about the search due to the “ongoing nature of the investigation.”
The truck Jabbar was driving was rented from the peer-to-peer car rental company Turo, as was the Cybertruck that caught fire in Las Vegas. Jabbar’s rented vehicle also had an ISIS flag on the tow bar.
The Cybertruck did not have an ISIS flag like the truck in New Orleans.
Flames rise from a Tesla Cybertruck after it exploded outside the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas, in Las Vegas, Nevada, on January 1, 2025. (Alcides Antunes/via REUTERS)
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A spokesperson for Turo told Fox News Digital that the company does not believe the tenants in the Las Vegas and New Orleans attacks had criminal backgrounds that would have identified them as a security threat.
Meanwhile, McMahill said the Cybertruck survived most of Wednesday’s explosion and was still fully intact afterward.
“The fact that this was a Cybertruck really limited the damage that occurred inside the valet because most of the explosion traveled through the truck and back out,” McMahill said. “If you look at that video, you’ll see that the glass doors at the front of the Trump hotel weren’t even broken by the explosion.”
The preliminary investigation to date has involved input from Tesla CEO Elon Muskwhich according to McMahill provided quite a bit of information about how the vehicle became locked after it exploded due to the force of the explosion.
Investigators responded to the scene after a person previously drove a vehicle into a crowd at Canal and Bourbon Street in New Orleans on Wednesday, January 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
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Musk also helped capture surveillance footage from Tesla charging stations throughout the country.
The billionaire kept followers on his social media platform X updated on the Cybertruck explosion.
“We have now confirmed that the explosion was caused by very large fireworks and/or a bomb carried in the back of the rented Cybertruck and is not related to the vehicle itself. All vehicle telemetry was positive at the time of the explosion,” Musk wrote. in one message.
“The evil fools chose the wrong vehicle for a terrorist attack. Cybertruck contained the explosion and directed the blast upwards,” he said in another post. “Even the glass doors of the lobby were not broken.”
