On Wednesday January 1, 2025, just a few hours after a car-ramming attack in the French Quarter of New Orleans (Louisiana) killing fourteen people, another large-scale incident involving a vehicle took place in the United States. This time, it was in Las Vegas (Nevada) that a vehicle exploded in front of a hotel. It's a Tesla Cybertruck, the American brand's electric pickup.
Parked in front of the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas, in the valet area facing the entrance, the pickup truck literally exploded, lightly injuring seven people nearby. The driver, a 37-year-old soldier named Matthew Livelsberger, died in the explosion, which was followed by impressive fireworks. According to the first elements of the investigation relayed by American media, this master sergeant in the American Special Forces would have committed suicide with a bullet in the mouth before exploding the vehicle, rented in Colorado (where he resided with his wife and eight-month-old daughter) thanks to the peer-to-peer rental platform Turo. Firefighters responded within 4 minutes of the explosion, and brought the fire under control in approximately an hour.
“I rented a Cybertruck, it’s crap”
Livelsberger reportedly rented the Cybertruck on Saturday, December 28 in Denver, telling the owner about a trip to the Grand Canyon. However, it was in Las Vegas, 820 miles from his home in Colorado Springs (approximately 1,320 km) that he went. The FBI was able to trace his journey (Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Nevada) thanks to the network of superchargers and video surveillance cameras, which always film him alone. During his trip, he also reconnected with his ex-girlfriend Alicia Arritt, with whom he had stopped all contact after their breakup in 2021. Interviewed by the Denver Gazette, the young woman explained that she was surprised that he reconnected but that his messages seemed “playful, almost like a child with a new toy”. Among the texts exchanged, “I rented a Tesla Cybertruck. This is shit” or “I feel like Batman or Halo”.
Kenny Cooper, of the federal agency ATF, and responsible for firearms issues, says that authorities have found “two semi-automatic handguns”, purchased “legally” on December 30, 2024 by Livelsberger. The police are still trying to understand the motivations for such an act, which is probably not linked to the attack in New Orleans. Is the fact of having targeted the Trump hotel, belonging to the new American president, with a Cybertruck, a model produced by Tesla which belongs to Elon Musk (very close to the new president), a possible explanation? The investigation will determine this.
A body that protects?
Either way, the Cybertruck appears to have saved lives. Indeed, despite a dumpster filled with gasoline cans and fireworks mortars, the explosion caused little damage. The windows of the nearby hotel did not explode, and the blast from the detonation appears to have been contained by the vehicle. It seems that its steel bodywork played a role in this. “Most of the explosion went through the vehicle from the top and came out. If you watch this video, you will see that the glass doors of the Trump Hotel were not even broken by the explosion,” Las Vegas Sheriff Kevin McMahill said at a press conference.
Elon Musk quickly reacted on of the rented Cybertruck and that it is not linked to the vehicle itself”. He added in another post: “we've never seen anything like this,” and explained that “the bad guys chose the wrong vehicle.”
Photo : X @Reuters
Join Auto-Moto on WhatsApp so you don't miss any car and 2-wheel news!
Featured Podcasts
MEN LIFE
To summarize
On January 1, a Tesla Cybertruck exploded outside the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas, killing one and injuring seven. The blast from the explosion appears to have been contained thanks to its steel bodywork, despite a large quantity of explosives and fireworks found in the dumpster.
