Las Vegas Cybertruck blast suspect shot himself before explosion, officials say: Updates

LAS VEGAS — The person who died inside a Tesla Cybertruck that exploded in Las Vegas on New Year's Day sustained a gunshot wound to the head before the blast, officials said Thursday, as the investigation continued into why it happened.

The Cybertruck exploded Wednesday morning while it was parked near Trump International Hotel, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Sheriff Kevin McMahill said. The gunshot wound was believed to be self-inflicted immediately before the detonation, and a handgun was found by the person's feet, McMahill said. He said it is considered a suicide with a bombing that occurred immediately after.

Though authorities said they could not yet definitively identify the person because their remains were badly burned, several identifying documents found inside the vehicle and other records pointed to the suspect as 37-year-old Matthew Livelsberger.

Livelsberger, was an active-duty member of the Army’s elite Special Forces, a U.S. government official told USA TODAY earlier Thursday on the condition of anonymity. The Army confirmed Livelsberger died Wednesday.

The Las Vegas explosion involved gasoline canisters, camp fuel canisters and large firework mortars in the back of the truck.

"The level of sophistication is not what we would expect from an individual with this type of military experience," said Kenny Cooper, assistant special agent in charge of ATF's San Francisco field division. "Most of the materials inside that Tesla were fuel to help fuel a greater explosion."

Also found inside the Cybertruck, according to McMahill, was military identification, a passport, two semi-automatic firearms, fireworks, an iPhone and smart watch and several credit cards.

A motive for the explosion was not yet known, according to Spencer Evans, special agent in charge of FBI's Las Vegas field office.

Officials said Thursday so far they have no evidence of other suspects being involved in the explosion.

"I’m also confident to tell the Las Vegas community and this great nation that we don’t believe there’s any further threat from this subject or anybody associated to him," McMahill said.

Latest developments:

• Law enforcement officials including the FBI Denver, the Colorado Springs Police Department and the Denver Field Division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were conducting activity at a home in Colorado Springs on Thursday related to the explosion, the FBI said.

• Records show Livelsberger owns a home in northeast Ohio, according to the Akron Beacon Journal, part of the USA TODAY Network. Neighbors told the outlet that Livelsberger is not believed to have lived there, and that he purchased it for his mother to live.

NEW ORLEANS ATTACK UPDATES: Search intensifies for other suspects in truck attack

Striking similarities between explosion, New Orleans attack

Authorities confirmed several similarities between the man believed to have been driving the Cybertruck and Shamsud-Din Jabbar, the man who rammed a truck into a crowd in New Orleans hours earlier, killing at least 14 before being fatally shot by police. But federal officials said Thursday they have discovered no evidence of a link between the two incidents.

Both men rented the trucks from the peer-to-peer rental platform Turo, the company confirmed Wednesday.

Both men also served at Fort Bragg, now Fort Liberty, in North Carolina, but McMahill said there was not evidence they served at the same time or in the same unit. They both served in Afghanistan, but again, there was no evidence they were at the same time or in the same location.

Authorities in New Orleans had also investigated a potential explosive device in that vehicle, but authorities said they believed the New Orleans suspect acted as a lone wolf.

"At this point, there is no definitive link between the attack here in New Orleans and the one in Las Vegas," FBI Deputy Assistant Director Christopher Raia said Thursday.

What happened in the Las Vegas Cybertruck explosion?

Video shared by the police department shows the Cybertruck parked in front of the hotel suddenly going up in a fiery explosion with a huge plume of smoke, which also appeared to include fireworks going off.

"There is no further threat to the community," McMahill said during a news conference Wednesday. McMahill and Jeremy Schwartz, acting Special Agent in Charge for the FBI in Las Vegas, said they believe the explosion was an isolated incident.

Timeline of the explosion

Livelsberger rented the Cybertruck on Dec. 28 in Denver, McMahill said Thursday. His movements were traced on a route to Las Vegas using records from Tesla charging stations. Both firearms were purchased legally on Dec. 30, Cooper said.

The Cybertruck arrived in Las Vegas at about 7:30 a.m. local time, according to the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. The vehicle had been rented from Colorado using a peer-to-peer rental service, Turo.

The driver drove up and down Las Vegas Boulevard for about an hour before pulling up to the Trump hotel, where it sat for about 15 seconds before the explosion at about 8:40 a.m.

"The fact that this was a Cybertruck really limited the damage that occurred inside the valet," McMahill said. He said the explosion was directed upward, instead of outward, because of the Cybertruck's design.

First unveiled in 2019, the Cybertruck is a battery-powered EV and Tesla’s first truck. The vehicle gained attention for its post-apocalyptic styling. It was marketed as having a "bullet tough" stainless-steel frame and "basically rock-proof" armored glass, according to previous statements from Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

Probe into possible terrorism

Schwartz, of the FBI, said the first goal for investigators is to confirm the identity of the driver of the Cybertruck, and the second goal is to determine whether this was an act of terrorism.

There was no evidence of links to the Islamic State, McMahill said.

President Joe Biden had said Wednesday that authorities were also investigating whether the New Orleans link was also connected. Thursday, Raia said investigators currently believe the New Orleans driver, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, acted alone. It's still very early in the investigation, however, he said.

Contributing: John Bacon, Josh Meyer, Trevor Hughes, Tom Vanden Brook, Joey Garrison, Bailey Schulz and Eve Chen, USA TODAY

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Las Vegas Cybertruck explosion updates: Person dead had gunshot wound