“His burned body is unrecognizable,” Mr. McMahill said during a press conference.
But authorities – who found identification papers on site – believe it is probably Matthew Alan Livelsberger, a 37-year-old soldier from Colorado.
“I do not yet have 100% confirmation that it is the individual inside” the Cybertruck, nevertheless warned the sheriff of this city in the southwest of the United States, renowned for its hotels and casinos.
Images posted on social networks showed on Wednesday a gray Cybertruck electric vehicle, parked in front of the entrance to the hotel where the name “Trump” is displayed in large format, exploding in a huge cloud of smoke. The explosion also left seven people lightly injured.
“The suspect’s motivations remain unknown at this stage. (…) We do not have information that allows us to say with certainty or suggest that it was motivated by a particular ideology,” he said during the same press conference, Spencer Evans, special agent of the FBI.
“Just a few hours” before the attack in New Orleans, the suspect had published several disturbing videos
Member of the special forces
Matthew Alan Livelsberger is a member of the US Army Special Forces, who was on “approved leave at the time of his death”, a Pentagon spokesperson said in a statement.
According to this spokesperson, Mr. Livelsberger, a decorated soldier, joined in 2006 and served in the army until 2011, before joining the National Guard then the reserve army, and finally joining the special forces in 2012.
In the rented Cybertruck Tesla, the authorities found “two semi-automatic handguns”, purchased “legally” on December 30, 2024 by Mr. Livelsberger, added Kenny Cooper, of the federal agency ATF, in charge in particular of questions of firearms.
-One of the weapons was found at the foot of the body of the individual present in the vehicle, according to the authorities.
Tesla boss, Elon Musk is an ally of President-elect Donald Trump, who has charged him with an extra-governmental mission of deregulation and reduction of public spending in his future government.
The explosion came hours after a car-ramming attack in New Orleans, in which 14 people were killed and around 30 injured.
The suspect in this attack is a former American soldier named Shamsud-Din Jabbar. He had proclaimed in several videos his support for the Islamic State (IS) group and had also claimed to have joined the jihadist organization, according to the federal police.
The FBI said Thursday that there was no “irrefutable link” between the two events.
There is no information at this time indicating a connection between the suspect, Matthew Alan Livelsberger, and any “terrorist organization in the world,” Agent Spencer Evans further clarified.
Asked if he could call the act a “suicide mission,” Sheriff McMahill responded, “I have no problem calling it a suicide considering the explosion that happened immediately afterward.”
The day before, this police officer had indicated that the rear of the Tesla vehicle contained cans of gasoline and “large fireworks mortars”. He estimated that the structure of the Cybertruck had “helped limit the damage”.
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