On the morning of New Year’s Day in Las Vegas, a Tesla Cybertruck blew up while parked in front of the Trump International Hotel. Police say the truck’s bed was loaded with gas canisters and fireworks, and that the driver died and seven people were injured. The motive of the driver, a 37-year-old Green Beret who died by suicide before the explosion, is not yet clear. Below are some quick answers to the big questions about the Vegas incident thus far.
What happened?
Around 8:40 a.m. local time, a Tesla Cybertruck stopped in front of the entrance to the Trump International Hotel, then suddenly exploded and became engulfed in flames. Police say the driver, Matthew Livelsberger, shot himself in the head before the explosion. He was the vehicles only occupant. Seven bystanders suffered minor injuries.
In videos shared from the hotel after the blast, people could be seen being carefully escorted out of the building.
After firefighters put out the blaze, police found that the truck’s bed had been filled with gas canisters, camping-fuel canisters, and large fireworks. It’s not yet clear how the explosion was detonated.
The incident is being investigated as a potential terrorist act, but the driver’s motive is far from clear at this point.
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Who was the driver?
The driver has been identified as 37-year-old Matthew Livelsberger, an active duty U.S. Army sergeant master who was home on leave in Colorado Springs, which is also where the Cybertruck was reportedly rented via the car-sharing app Turo. He served in U.S. Army Special Forces, also known as the Green Berets, and was currently stationed in Germany.
Livelsberger’s uncle told the Independent that the 19-year-veteran was a “supersoldier” who “loved the army”:
“He used to have all patriotic stuff on Facebook, he was 100 percent loving the country,” he continued. “He loved Trump, and he was always a very, very patriotic soldier, a patriotic American. It’s one of the reasons he was in Special Forces for so many years. It wasn’t just one tour of duty.”
The uncle was also surprised that Livelsberger, with all the skills he learned in the special forces, hadn’t built a more sophisticated bomb.
Livelsberger’s wife reportedly hadn’t heard from him in several days:
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Was it an attack?
That’s not confirmed, but it was an apparently intentional explosion, possibly intended to be much bigger than it was. Plus, it happened outside Donald Trump’s branded hotel in a major American city on a major holiday involving a high-profile vehicle made by the company of one of the president-elect’s most influential advisers, who is also the world’s richest man.
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Is there any connection to the New Orleans attack?
Initially, it seemed there might be connections between the Vegas Cybertruck explosion and the Bourbon Street truck-ramming attack, which also happened on New Year’s Day. The fully electric trucks used in both incidents were rented via the niche car-sharing platform Turo, and both suspects had U.S. military backgrounds, with both spending time in Afghanistan and at Fort Bragg.
But on Thursday, the FBI said that the suspect in the Bourbon Street attack, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, acted alone, and that there is “no definitive link” between his alleged actions and the explosion in Las Vegas.
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Did the explosion have anything to do with the Cybertruck itself? How have Tesla and Elon Musk responded?
As videos of the fire-engulfed Cybertruck spread across the internet, Musk said that company executives were looking into the explosion, while insisting the company had never seen something like that happen before. Hours later, Musk announced on X that company data indicated there was nothing wrong with the vehicle, and that the explosion resulted from combustible materials in the bed of the truck:
Musk has also boasted about how the design of the Cybertruck limited the damage the explosion caused.
There have been multiple incidents in which Cybertrucks caught fire following accidents, but no reported incidents in which one just randomly exploded.
The Tesla CEO also appeared to object to how the incident has been characterized in the media, sharing an X post from one user who suggested that Musk should sue outlets over headlines he thinks are “sabotaging @Tesla’s brand by making people think it caught on fire.”
“Maybe it is time to do so,” Musk wrote in response.
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How have Donald Trump and his family responded?
Trump’s son Eric, who is the executive VP of the Trump Organization, initially responded to the incident via social media. He thanked first responders and stressed that “the safety and well-being of our guests and staff remain our top priority.”
President-elect Trump has not yet publicly responded to the Vegas incident.
This post has been updated.
