(AFP) – The man who reportedly rented the Tesla Cybertruck that exploded outside a hotel owned by President-elect Donald Trump in Las Vegas was a member of the US military’s special forces, officials said Thursday. The Pentagon said Matthew Alan Livelsberger was on leave from active duty at the time of the incident, in which the Cybertruck filled with fuel containers and fireworks erupted early Wednesday. Officials said one person inside the vehicle was killed and seven bystanders injured.
US media have identified Livelsberger as the man who rented the Cybertruck, though authorities have not yet confirmed that or the identity of the person who died inside the vehicle. “U.S. Army Special Operations Command can confirm Livelsberger was assigned to the command and on approved leave at the time of his death,” an army spokesperson said, without confirming that he was the person inside the truck. The spokesperson said Livelsberger had enlisted from 2006 until 2011, before serving in the National Guard and the Army Reserve and then joining special forces by 2012.
The blast came just hours after an electric pickup truck plowed into a crowd in New Orleans’ French Quarter, killing at least 15 and injuring dozens. Initially, investigators were probing any potential link between the two incidents, but authorities in New Orleans said Thursday they believe the attacker there acted alone, while the FBI described the Vegas incident as “isolated.”
Video footage outside the Trump International Hotel shows the stainless steel truck parked at the building’s glass entrance, then bursting into flames, followed by smaller explosions that appeared similar to fireworks. The Trump-branded building, which opened in 2008, is part-owned by the Republican president-elect’s family business.
Las Vegas Sheriff Kevin McMahill told a news conference Wednesday that the back of the truck contained gasoline and camping fuel canisters, as well as large firework mortars. McMahill also said the fact that it was a Cybertruck “really limited the damage… because it had most of the blast go up through the truck and out,” noting that the glass doors of the hotel, just a few feet away, “were not even broken by that blast.”
FBI agent Jeremy Schwartz Wednesday said that an FBI joint terrorism task force was conducting the investigation with two main goals — to confirm the identity of the person who died in the Tesla truck and whether the blast was an act of terrorism.
Concerns over Trump-Musk link arose when authorities in New Orleans stated that the attacker there was inspired by the Islamic State jihadist group. McMahill said they had no indication so far that the blast in Las Vegas had any similar links. However, he added: “It’s a Tesla truck, and we know Elon Musk is working with President-elect Trump, and it’s the Trump tower.”
“So there’s obviously things to be concerned about there, and that’s something we continue to look at,” McMahill said. Tesla CEO Musk, the world’s richest man, backed Trump in the November election and was named by the Republican to head up a commission to trim government spending. The truck had been rented in Colorado through the carsharing company Turo, police said — the same app that was used to rent the vehicle in the New Orleans attack. McMahill said that was a “coincidence… that we have to continue to look into.”
– Wade Vandervort
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