The motivation of the thirty-year-old, who evolved notably within the American Special Forces, is currently still unknown.
Investigators revealed, Thursday, January 2, the identity of the man who committed suicide after parking a Tesla Cybertruck which exploded at the foot of the Trump Tower in Las Vegas, in the United States. Aged 37, Matthew Livelsberger served in the United States Army.
From 2006 to 2011, he was in Special Forces before serving in the National Guard and then the Army Reserve until 2012 when he left the military. According to his CV on his Linkedin profile, the man then worked for General Dynamics, the company which manufactures the F-16 planes. But it claims to have never employed Matthew Livelsberger. In December 2012, he returned to active service in the army. With expertise first in communications and then in intelligence, he served as a senior leader in an operational unit, holding the rank of master sergeant. His journey led him to serve for several years with the 10th Special Forces Group, based in Colorado Springs, while participating in missions from the American base in Stuttgart, Germany.
According to another Green Beret at the New York Times, Matthew Livelsberger was very experienced. He received numerous decorations for his combat in the field, notably in Afghanistan. Nicknamed “Berg”, the thirty-year-old, for example, had the opportunity to carry a rapid-fire grenade launcher, a weapon reserved for soldiers who have a good knowledge of the terrain, combat, and bombs.
He was capable of making devastating bombs
It is this point that questions many members of the American army. Because Berg was capable of making a devastating explosive. However, the Tesla that exploded at the foot of the Trump International Hotel was filled with fireworks mortars and cans of gasoline.
Was Matthew Livelsberger’s intention terrorist or criminal? “The motivation at this point is unknown,” FBI Special Agent in Charge Las Vegas Spencer Evans said at a news conference Jan. 2. “We all know 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 that it’s at cause of this particular ideology or, you know, the reason behind it,” he detailed.
According to a source close to the investigation, Berg was a supporter of Donald Trump. According to neighbors, he and his second wife “seem like good people. They’re a normal young couple with a family. They always have their windows open, they come in and out with their dog. It seems like they don’t hide nothing.”
The suicide trail seems favored
The Green Beret rented the Tesla on Saturday, December 28 in Denver. It passed through Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona before stopping in Nevada. “We discovered, thanks to the medical examiner’s office, that the individual had been shot in the head before the vehicle exploded,” according to the Las Vegas sheriff, who suggests it was a suicide. Police confirm that “the cause of his death was due to intra-oral gunshot wound by suicide.”
The Tesla exploded on Wednesday January 1 around 8:39 a.m., a few hours after the attack which took place in New Orleans. Are the two events linked? At this stage, nothing is confirmed. The two men behind both incidents “both served in North Carolina on a military base. It is unknown if they served together or in the same years, we are investigating that. It is known that they both served in Afghanistan but we don’t know if they were in the same province or in the same unit,” noted the Las Vegas sheriff who points out that the vehicles were rented via the Turo application in both case”, a “coincidence that we must continue to be examined”.