By TARA COPP, ALANNA DURKIN RICHER, COLLEEN LONG and TY ONEIL
LAS VEGAS (AP) — The person who died in the explosion of a Tesla Cybertruck packed with explosives outside President-elect Donald Trump’s Las Vegas hotel was an active-duty U.S. Army soldier, officials said Thursday.
Two law enforcement officials identified the man inside the futuristic-looking pickup truck as Matthew Livelsberger. The officials spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss an ongoing investigation.
Livelsberger was a member of the Army’s elite Green Berets, a special forces unit and guerrilla warfare experts, according to an Army statement. He has served in the Army since 2006, rising through the ranks, and was on approved leave when he died, the statement said. The Green Berets work to counter terrorists abroad using unconventional techniques.
Livelsberger spent time at the base formerly known as Fort Bragg, a massive Army base in North Carolina that is home to Army special forces command.
The FBI said Thursday in a post on X that it was “conducting law enforcement activity” at a home in Colorado Springs related to Wednesday’s explosion but provided no other details.
The explosion of the truck, packed with firework mortars and camp fuel canisters, came hours after 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar rammed a truck into a crowd in New Orleans’ famed French Quarter early on New Year’s Day, killing at least 15 people before being shot to death by police. That crash was being investigated as a terrorist attack and police believe the driver was not acting alone.
Jabbar, a U.S. Army veteran, also spent time at Fort Bragg, now called Fort Liberty, but one official said so far there is no overlap in their assignments there.
The investigation so far has not shown the incidents in Las Vegas and New Orleans are related, and authorities don’t think the men knew each other, the two law enforcement officials said.
Seven people nearby suffered minor injuries when the Tesla truck exploded.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk said Wednesday afternoon on X that “we have now confirmed that the explosion was caused by very large fireworks and/or a bomb carried in the bed of the rented Cybertruck and is unrelated to the vehicle itself.”
“All vehicle telemetry was positive at the time of the explosion,” Musk wrote.
Authorities know who rented the truck with the Turo app in Colorado, Police Department Sheriff Kevin McMahill said Wednesday.