By New York Post (U.S.) | Created at 2025-01-03 02:37:24 | Updated at 2025-01-05 06:38:27
2 days ago
The wife of the Army soldier who blew up a Tesla Cybertruck outside the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas Wednesday broke up with him six days before he killed himself inside the vehicle, according to law enforcement sources.
Matthew Livelsberger, 37, left his Colorado Springs home the day after Christmas following an argument with his wife over apparent infidelity, two sources familiar with the investigation told The Post.
His wife — who had a baby daughter with Livelsberger — reportedly told him that she knew he had been cheating, the sources said.
After leaving Colorado, Livelsberger rented a Cybertruck through the Turo app and made his way to Vegas, where he parked in front of the Trump hotel on New Year’s Day, detonated explosives stashed in the truck and shot himself in the head, Las Vegas police said.
With the new development in the case, investigators are probing whether the solider’s motive was purely personal rather than political as previously considered given the location of the detonation and choice of vehicle.
The FBI had been looking into the possibility that the bombing was politically charged because it occurred outside a hotel owned by President-elect Donald Trump and inside a vehicle made by the company of Trump’s close ally Elon Musk, according to FBI officials.
“It’s not lost on us that it happened in front of the Trump building and a Tesla vehicle was used,” said Spencer Evans, the FBI special agent in charge.
But Livelsberger, who was an active member of the Army’s elite Special Forces, was known to be a “Rambo-type patriot” and staunch Trump supporter — and law enforcement officers are investigating if he had purposefully picked a Cybertruck to limit civilian casualties, rather than for political reasons, the sources said.
If he had used a normal vehicle, the explosion would have likely taken out the glass doors of the building and possibly the lobby — potentially killing innocent bystanders.
The Cybertruck’s impenetrable steel design contained the explosion, while still giving off large flames, according to the sources — and Musk himself.
“The evil knuckleheads picked the wrong vehicle for a terrorist attack. Cybertruck actually contained the explosion and directed the blast upwards,” the Tesla CEO tweeted.
“Not even the glass doors of the lobby were broken.”
Seven people suffered minor injuries from the blast, while Livelsberger’s body was burned beyond recognition. He was identified from his passport and Army ID found inside the vehicle.
The soldier had been deployed to Afghanistan in 2017 and 2018 and was known for his patriotism, his uncle Dean Livelsberger, an Air Force vet himself, told The Independent.
“He loved Trump, and he was always a very, very patriotic soldier, a patriotic American,” the uncle insisted.
“It’s one of the reasons he was in Special Forces for so many years. It wasn’t just one tour of duty.”
Livelsberger was last stationed at Camp Panzer Kaserne just southwest of Stuttgart, Germany, where he worked as a remote and autonomous systems manager for the Army.
He had been in the Army for at least 19 years, joining the Green Berets in 2006, according to his LinkedIn profile.
