The man suspected of being behind Tesla Cybertruck explosion in Las Vegas was a “big” supporter of Donald Trump and voted for him in November, a senior law enforcement official tells the Daily Beast.
That revelation came from an interview between Matthew Livelsberger’s loved ones and investigators, the source said. His family added that they believed the 37-year-old Green Beret, who died in Wednesday’s blast outside Trump International Hotel, had Republican leanings.
The revelation tracks with old Facebook comments and what Livelsberger’s uncle, Dean, told The Independent about his nephew’s politics on Thursday.
“He loved Trump, and he was always a very, very patriotic soldier, a patriotic American,” Dean said. “It’s one of the reasons he was in Special Forces for so many years.”
Records in El Paso County, Colo., indicate that he registered in 2020 with the No Labels party, which supports centrist “commonsense” candidates, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.
Much remains unknown about what allegedly drove Livelsberger to rent a Cybertruck in his hometown of Colorado Springs and drive it to Trump’s Las Vegas property.
The truck was filled with explosives and, perhaps miraculously, only injured seven when it burst into flames just steps from the hotel’s front lobby. Livelsberger was the only fatality in the blast.
Livelsberger was a highly trained Special Operations soldier, multiple reports revealed Thursday. He was stationed in Germany, but was back stateside on approved leave.
He enlisted in the U.S. Army when he was still a teenager and was just one year away from receiving his full military benefits, having served 19 years.
CNN’s John Miller, the network’s chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst, gave telling insight into the blast suspect on Thursday. He told viewers the suspect was “highly trained in communications and electronic measures for bomb detections and intelligence operations.”
Miller noted that there remains no “clear motive” for the explosion, which some have speculated was meant to be a political statement against Trump.
That theory emerged largely because of the explosion’s symbolics. The vehicle used, a Cybertruck, is Tesla owner Elon Musk’s crown jewel of a vehicle. Musk has been a top Trump ally since the summer, making the explosion’s location—at the Trump property nearest to Livelsberger’s hometown—all the more suspicious.
Miller theorized that the Cybertruck’s driver wanted to make sure that his charred vehicle would appear in close proximity to the massive “TRUMP” signage at the front of the hotel.
“Is he saying it’s 7 something in the morning and there’s not a lot of people here, I’m going to come back in an hour and see if there’s a bigger crowd,” Miller said. “Or is he doing his reconnaissance as a military operator would, which is, who stops you where, where am I going to place this, so the Elon Musk vehicle is going to be right under the Trump sign.
“We don’t know the symbolism that they were going for in this attack was, but they are looking at all of that.”