- The cybertruck driver has been identified as Matthew Levelsburger.
- Police say the Army soldier acted alone in Las Vegas.
- Levelsburger shot himself in the face, police say
Authorities have identified the man found dead inside a cybertruck that exploded outside the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas on Thursday as a US Army soldier from Colorado, the FBI says. It is not yet clear whether the blast was an act of terrorism.
The FBI said it has yet to find a definitive link between the New Orleans truck attack that killed 15 people on New Year’s Day and the cybertruck explosion in Las Vegas later that day that left seven people with minor injuries.
The cybertruck driver has been identified as Matthew Levelsberger, 37, an active-duty Army soldier from Colorado Springs, and police say he acted alone.
According to a post on X by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, citing the Clark County Coroner/Medical Examiner’s report, police said Levelsburger killed himself with a gunshot wound to the face.
Levelsburger was inside the vehicle when gasoline canisters and large firecracker mortars exploded in the bed of the truck, police said.
Police previously said at a press conference that they believed the man found in the truck was Levelsburger, but because the body had been burned, investigators were awaiting confirmation from DNA evidence and medical records.
Sheriff Kevin McMahal of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department told reporters that Levelsburger shot himself before detonating the explosives in the car. A handgun was found at his feet.
It was one of two semi-automatic handguns found in the cyber truck, both legally purchased by Levelsburger on December 30. Law enforcement also found a military ID, a passport, an iPhone and credit cards in the truck.
Levelsburger was assigned to Army Special Operations Command and was on approved leave at the time of his death, an Army official said. A spokesman said the Army Special Operations Command would not comment on ongoing investigations.
A U.S. official told Reuters that Levelsberger has been awarded the Army Commendation for Valor with the Bronze Star and the Combat Infantryman’s Badge. He completed five combat deployments in Afghanistan, the official said.
A close relative of Levelsberger, who asked that his name not be used because he did not want to be publicly associated with the suspect, told Reuters that Levelsberger had always been an “Army soldier, in the Special Forces, even That a little kid wanted to be, and when he got it, he was a soldier’s soldier.”
The relative told Reuters that Levelsburger had been a supporter of President-elect Donald Trump throughout the Republican’s political career, and viewed him as someone who loved the military. “He thought Trump was the greatest thing in the world.”
Levelsburger went to high school in Bokerce in northern Ohio, the person said, where he played football and baseball and appeared happy and popular.
The family had no idea Levelsberger was planning something like the Las Vegas bombing, the person said. He said he could not come to terms with what Levelsberger did to the man he knew both as a child and as a man.
According to Ohio Media, Levelsburger graduated from Bokeris High School in 2005. He left immediately after graduation to join the army, his relative said.
Videos taken by witnesses inside and outside the Las Vegas hotel show the Cybertruck, an electric vehicle with a distinctive angular design, sitting in front of the hotel around 8:40 a.m. local time (1640 GMT). He is bursting out of it and flames are coming out of it. on Wednesday.
A spokesman for Trump did not return a request for comment Thursday.
Trump building, Tesla car
The Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas, part of Donald Trump’s company, the Trump Organization, will return to the White House on January 20. The president-elect’s son Eric Trump, an executive at the Trump Organization, praised the Las Vegas fire. and law enforcement officials for immediate action after the explosion on Wednesday.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk was a key supporter of Trump in the 2024 presidential campaign and is also an adviser to the incoming president.
“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 any information at this time that definitively tells us or suggests that that’s the reason for that particular theory. was from, or … about the reasoning behind it,” said McMahal of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.
Police said Levelsburger rented a cybertruck in Denver on Dec. 28 and stopped in several cities, including Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Flagstaff, Arizona, before arriving in Las Vegas on Wednesday morning.
The truck drove along the city’s hotel- and casino-lined strip, passed through the Trump Hotel driveway and later returned to the valet area. After the explosion, the Trump Hotel was evacuated and most of the guests were transferred to other hotels.
Both the cybertruck and the vehicle used in the New Orleans attack were rented by the car-sharing service Toro, McMahill said.
A Toro spokeswoman said the company did not believe any of the vehicle renters involved had a criminal background that would have identified them as a security risk.