Police reveal chilling notes left by Cybertruck bomber: ‘Time to wake up!’
Police shared excerpts of notes Matthew Livelsberger had left on his phone, where he said ‘What better way to get my point across than a stunt with fireworks and explosives?’
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Cybertruck bomber Matthew Livelsberger caused the explosion outside of Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas to serve as a “wake up call,” chilling notes police recovered from his phone revealed.
The active-duty Green Beret, 37, fatally shot himself before the vehicle exploded outside the hotel on the morning of New Year’s Day.
“This was not a terrorist attack, it was a wake up call,” Livelsberger said in the excerpt of the letter, read aloud by Assistant Sheriff Dori Koren of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police at a press conference on Friday afternoon.
“Americans only pay attention to spectacles and violence,” excerpts of Livelsberger’s letter read. “What better way to get my point across than a stunt with fireworks and explosives?”
Seven others were injured in the blast outside the hotel.
It also emerged that the army veteran had argued with his wife after she told him she suspected he had been cheating, the New York Post reports, citing law enforcement sources.
Here’s what we know about the suspect in the Las Vegas explosion:
Who was Matthew Livelsberger?
Matthew Livelsberger was a 37-year-old army veteran from Colorado Springs.
Sources told Denver 7 that multiple addresses had been associated with Livelsberger in Colorado and FBI agents were investigating these properties.
According to a family member, who spoke exclusively to The Independent, Livelsberger “was a 100 percent patriot,” who loved the Army and was an ardent supporter of President-elect Donald Trump. Pictures from social media show him with a tattoo of a bald eagle and the American flag visible on his shoulder.
“He used to have all patriotic stuff on Facebook, he was 100 percent loving the country,” his uncle, Dean Livelsberger, said. “He loved Trump, and he was always a very, very patriotic soldier, a patriotic American. It’s one of the reasons he was in Special Forces for so many years. It wasn’t just one tour of duty.”
Livelsberger divorced his first wife, who now lives in South Florida with her new husband, several years ago. He had a newborn with his second wife, who reportedly ended their relationship just days before the explosion.
He had argued with his wife after she told him she suspected he had been cheating, the New York Post reported, citing law enforcement sources.
Livelsberger left his home in Colorado Springs the day after Christmas following the argument with his wife, two sources familiar with the investigation told the newspaper.
It has also emerged that Livelsberger had reportedly been back in touch with former girlfriends in the days before the explosion.
He boasted to one of them, Alicia Arritt, that he “felt like Batman” after renting the Tesla Cybertruck.
Arritt, from Colorado Springs, his former girlfriend of three years, said the 37-year-old got in touch with her on December 29 out of the blue.
“I rented a Tesla Cybertruck. It’s the s***,” he texted Arritt that morning, the Denver Gazette reports. “I feel like Batman or halo,” he added.
According to Arritt, Livelsberger’s behavior changed after he returned from a tour in the Middle East suffering from a traumatic brain injury in 2019.
Chilling notes recovered on his phone: Explosion was ‘a wake up call’
At a press conference on Friday afternoon, Coren of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police shared excerpts from notes investigators found on Livelsberger’s phone following the explosion.
They provided an insight into his state of mind before he detonated the vehicle, according to officials.
“Fellow Servicemembers, Veterans, and all Americans, TIME TO WAKE UP!” he said in one excerpt. “We are being led by weak and feckless leadership who only serve to enrich themselves.”
In a second letter, Livelsberger said the US is “headed toward collapse.”
“This was not a terrorist attack, it was a wake up call,” Livelsberger said. “Americans only pay attention to spectacles and violence. What better way to get my point across than a stunt with fireworks and explosives?”
He added: “Why did I personally do it now? I needed to cleanse my mind of the brothers I’ve lost and relieve myself of the burden of the lives I took.”
Coren added that the words he read aloud were only excerpts of more letters they uncovered, which he said would be made public. He explained that Livelsberger wrote about “political grievances, issues about conflicts elsewhere, domestic issues” and “a variety of things including personal challenges.”
Where did he serve?
Livelsberger was in the U.S. Army for 19 years, 18 of them in the elite Special Forces.
He is believed to have joined the Green Berets as a communications specialist in January 2006, before becoming an operations manager and team sergeant in February 2023. The profile picture on his LinkedIn account shows a man sporting winter gear armed with a rifle, standing atop a snowmobile in mountainous terrain.
His most recent role, from November 2024, was listed as a Remote and Autonomous Systems Manager for the Army. Livelsberger was stationed in Germany, and was on leave in Colorado Springs when he rented the Cybertruck and drove to Nevada, law enforcement sources said.
“Matt was a very skilled warrior, and he would be able to make — if it was him, and if he did this — he would’ve been able to make a more sophisticated explosive than using propane tanks and camping fuel,” Dean Livelsberger told The Independent.
“He was what you might call a ‘supersoldier.’ If you ever read about the things he was awarded, and the experience he had, some of it doesn’t make sense, when he had the skills and ability to make something more, let’s say, ‘efficient.’ His skills were enormous from what he had been taught in the military.”
Livelsberger earned a summa cum laude – an award given to the students earning the highest grades in their class – after graduating from Norwich University in Vermont with a degree in Strategic Studies and Defense Analysis, according to his LinkedIn profile.
It also states he earned the Department of State Meritorious Honor Award for “interagency contributions that resulted in increased interoperability and efficiency while serving as the Operations Sergeant at Special Operations Command Forward.”
At 22 years old, Livelsberger began collecting clothes, toys and educational items for children and disseminating off humanitarian aid while serving a tour in Afghanistan, he told the News Journal in his native Ohio.
What happened in Las Vegas?
Just after 8.40 a.m. on Wednesday, Livelsberger detonated explosive devices inside the Tesla Cybertruck, which he had parked outside of the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas.
Video posted on social media showed different angles of the explosion, which included fireworks. Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Sheriff Kevin McMahill later confirmed that camp fuel canisters and “firework mortars” were found in the truck.
On Thursday, McMahill said investigators were confident that Livelsberger was the person in the vehicle, though his body was “burned beyond recognition.” The sheriff added that there was evidence that he had shot himself in the head prior to the blast.
“Complicating this identification of this individual, we also discovered through the coroner’s office that the individual had sustained a gunshot wound to the head prior to the detonation of the vehicle. One of the handguns was found at his feet inside of the vehicle,” McMahill said.
“I’m comfortable calling it a suicide with the bombing that occurred immediately thereafter. I’m not giving it any other labels.”
McMahill also said it was likely that the reinforced exterior of the Cybertruck had limited both the number of victims and destruction to nearby surroundings, as the blast had been directed “up and through” the vehicle. “I just don't think that it was done as well as he was expecting it to be done,” he said.
No definitive link to New Orleans attacker
Both the sheriff’s office and FBI investigators said they are “well aware” of the incident in New Orleans, which happened just hours before the Las Vegas explosion.
According to a report from Denver 7, the two New Year’s Day attackers – Livelsberger and Jabbar – allegedly served at the same military base, Fort Bragg, and were deployed in Afghanistan around the same period. In addition, the pair both rented their vehicles via the carsharing company, Turo, officials have said.
Despite this, authorities have said that there is currently “no definitive link” between the two incidents.
At the time they were fighting in the Middle East, the US had around 100,000 military personnel in Afghanistan as part of President Barack Obama’s ‘troop surge.’
At a previous news conference, McMahill highlighted the link between Trump and Elon Musk, the Tesla founder and the president-elect’s incoming head of the unofficial Department of Government Efficiency, tasked with cutting trillions from government spending.
“Obviously a Cybertruck, the Trump hotel, there are lots of questions we have to answer,” McMahill said, underscoring the close relationship between the president-elect and Tesla founder Elon Musk.
Musk took the opportunity to praise Tesla’s Cybertruck for being so sturdy that he said it helped contain the blast. “The evil knuckleheads picked the wrong vehicle for a terrorist attack. Cybertruck actually contained the explosion and directed the blast upwards,” he wrote in a post on X.
If you are based in the USA, and you or someone you know needs mental health assistance right now, call or text 988 or visit 988lifeline.org to access online chat from the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. This is a free, confidential crisis hotline that is available to everyone 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If you are in another country, you can go to www.befrienders.org to find a helpline near you. In the UK, people having mental health crises can contact the Samaritans at 116 123 or jo@samaritans.org