Cybertruck suspect 'shot himself' before detonation

The highly decorated Army soldier inside a Tesla Cybertruck packed with fireworks that exploded outside Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas shot himself in the head just before detonation, authorities said last night.

- JUSTIN ROHRLICH

The explosion caused minor injuries to seven people but virtually no damage to the hotel. Clark County Sheriff Kevin McMahill said Matthew Livelsberger, a 37-year-old Green Beret, most likely planned a more damaging attack but the steelsided vehicle absorbed much of the force from the crudely built explosive.

Damage from the blast was mostly limited to the interior of the truck because the explosion “vented out and up” and didn’t hit the Trump hotel doors just a few feet away, the sheriff said.

“The level of sophistication is not what we would expect from an individual with this type of military experience,” said Kenny Cooper, a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Authorities are still working to determine a motive.

“It’s not lost on us that it’s in front of the Trump building, that it’s a Tesla vehicle, but we don’t have information at this point that definitively tells us or suggests it was because of this particular ideology,” said Spencer Evans, the Las Vegas FBI’s special agent in charge.

Livelsberger “was a 100 per cent patriot”, his bewildered uncle said yesterday. Matthew Livelsberger, 37, was “like a Rambotype, for lack of a better word”, Dean Livelsberger told The Independent.

Dean, whose older brother is Livelsberger’s father, Roger, himself an air force veteran who served in Vietnam, said his nephew “loved the army”. “He used to have all patriotic stuff on Facebook, he was 100 per cent 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.”

Dean Livelsberger said he was aware of the explosion in Vegas, but had not yet been made aware that Matt, as he called him, had been named as the culprit until The Independent contacted him for comment.