Summary
Matthew Livelsberger, the suspect behind the Tesla Cybertruck explosion outside Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas, was described as a “big” Trump supporter and a highly trained Green Beret with 19 years of military service.
Livelsberger, who died in the blast, rented the Cybertruck in Colorado and filled it with explosives, injuring seven.
Authorities are investigating the incident’s symbolism, speculating it may have been a political statement due to its location and links to Trump and Elon Musk.
No clear motive has been established.
Why is there no mention of the term suicide bomber?
Suicide Arsonist at best.
Say what you will about the right wing lunatics, they are at least actively trying to take down the establishment. We leftist draw signs and bitch online 😑 me included
Speak for yourself. If you’re doing nothing, that’s on you.
Look at Palestine Action in the UK, who have written off weapons factories. That’s doing far more to take down ‘the establishment’ than a poorly-executed suicide bombing. Look at environmentalists sabotaging coal infrastructure, or even Cop City actions. Look at the unions sabotaging the police in my own city.
At least you don’t get downvoted for saying it anymore, more progress!
“He loved Trump, and he was always a very, very patriotic soldier, a patriotic American,”
Yeah. Reading the rest of the article (not that I trust the press these days) his version of being an “American Patriot” is “fuck everyone I hate, they can burn” and he really wanted Trump to do that for him. President Musk getting in the way really pissed him off when he finally realized that Trump is just another spineless, vain, wealthy narcissist that DGAF about him.
Fucking dumb coward and a dipshit trump voter. Look how dumb you redhats look with trump sucking the brown off the autistic slave owner musk’s ass. We have Luigi the fucking stud ceo blaster and yall are a clown car full of traitors and ghouls
Damn, I don’t think you like trump supporters 😂
Was probably mad that Musk turned out to be the actual president and not Trump.
It’s not terrorism if they’re MAGA as I understand.
Well his manifesto said it wasn’t terrorism after all. No reason to question such a fine upstanding citizen.
It’s these types of posts that drive people away from Lemmy. It’s systemic, it’s fucking so fucking repetitive.
Oh no. Anyways…
Like I wish there was more nonpolitical content on here but I’m not sad that this is a den of communists and technopunks
If by “technopunks”, you mean dweeb lords, you nailed it.
OK. You know where the door is, use it at your leisure
Sooooo won’t be investigated as terrorism got it… Sigh this country is so corrupt it’s not funny
Livelsberger, who died in the blast,
Actually, it’s a bit more interesting. According to an article that the BBC published, he shot himself in the head while in the car. From his viewpoint, it seems that the blast was just a fancy after-effect.
“Mr Livelsberger’s cause of death was suicide from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to the Clark County Coroner’s office.”
A former Green Beret? Check his military records, the shit for brains must have failed the demolitions course.
Symbolism? There’s no well thought out and clear symbol. It’s just an asshole who thinks going up in flames “sends a message (jokerMewing.jpg)”. A well thought out symbol is more like Luigi Mangione’s Deny Defend Depose.
This guy was promised a good life for the simple man by the republicans and he was repeatedly backstabbed, and that made him angry. Yet he stayed with them till the end at which point he couldn’t imagine himself not being the MAGA Rambo wannabe he thought himself to be. That’s what angry and dumb people do.
Isn’t that what the average Trump fan has in it’s trunk? Doesn’t the cybertruck come automatically with that shit? Guns, a Bible and a shit ton of explosives. And a flamethrower. “For protection”. Maybe he exploded prematurely, you know, again like the average Trump fan. He just wanted to sleep at the clown’s hotel before he was suppose to blow up some communists. Or this is what’s left from NYE, he used to have much more but he already lit that shit up. Why else would a Trump chromosome blow himself up in a Musketeer death trap in front of his favorite crimal’s business?
You’re thinking of a Ram.
Most right-wing redneck crazies can’t afford a CyberTruck and think electric cars are for communists anyway.
I heard it was rented. Not sure though
That’s what we call “pandering”
The only Cybertruck owners I know are Trump supporting small business owners.
It’s such a useless truck for doing truck things anyway, that rednecks would do need to move things wouldn’t be buying it even if it was cheap.
and a flamethrower
It comes with a device that is functionally the same as a flamethrower, but not called a flamethrower to make it legally allowed to be owned in California.
Yeah that’s what is typically American. “It’s not slavery, it’s forced labor during incarnation”. “It’s not torture, it’s enhanced interrogation”. “It’s not an assault gun, it’s protection”. “It’s not mass murder and war mongering, it’s freedom”. “It’s not a war crime, they are just terrorists, or look like them, whatever”.
I will still wait for more concrete details before I cast judgement, but in the meantime I can say this much:
Many leftist haters of Trump wouldn’t go in a Cybertruck to make a statement. They’d probably even refuse to be paid to get in one.
So… there may be a motive.
The wife of the Cybertruck bomber Matthew Livelsberger left him just days before he detonated the vehicle outside the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas, according to a report.
With a bit more context from some of the texts he made here from here:
https://www.newsweek.com/cybertruck-explosion-matthew-livelsberger-texts-ex-girlfriend-2009064
My entirely premature, editorialized take is that this guy cheated on his wife, or his wife left him due to suspecting as much, he believed his life was ruined, and decided to go out with a bang.
He was a big Trump guy, was a Green Beret for multiple tours of duty, until 2019 when he suffered a traumatic brain injury, he kept working in the Army, most recently as remote and autonomous systems manager stationed in Germany.
Then he went home on leave, his wife leaves him, and 3 days before his death, several days after his wife left him, he texted his previous ex (not his very recently ex wife):
“I rented a Tesla Cybertruck. It’s the s**t,” read a text to Arritt, obtained by the Denver Gazette.
“I feel like Batman or halo,”
…
He apparently shot himself in the head whilst inside the CyberTruck, parked outside of the Trump hotel… which then caught on fire, and the fireworks and fuel cannisters inside the CyberTruck eventually went off as well:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c86wnx174q8o
“I’m comfortable calling it a suicide with a bombing that occurred immediately after,” Sheriff McMahill said during Thursday’s press conference.
As far as I can tell so far… the actual, specific mechanism that caused of the ignition of the CyberTruck does not appear to have been determined so far, but it was probably by design of Livelsberger.
While the car having fireworks inside of it is possibly coincidentally explained by New Years, fuel cans inside a rented CyberTruck probably signal an intention to go out with a bang.
…
So, yeah, summed up, my take is that this notably brain damaged individual, who was a big Trump fan and probably Elon fan as well, who felt like Batman driving around in a Halo warthog in a CyberTruck…
…basically just became suicidal after his wife left him and went on a joyride in a CyberTruck, then game overed himself in spectacular fashion.
The stupid things have had over a half dozen recalls in the last year. You couldn’t pay me enough to get in one.
I already feel unsafe when I call a Lyft or Uber and get a Tesla. That alone removes a star.
That’s kind of a fucked up reason to decrease the rating of your driver, don’t you think?
No, the back seats literally become death traps after a crash and cannot be opened without knowing where to look for a special release that requires disassembling floor or door panels. (It’s different for different models and years.) They are not suitable vehicles for taxi service.
Idk about other models but in a model 3 the manual door latch is like 3 inches from the door opening button
Depends on the year.
I mean… this guy was possibly a suicide bomber.
I don’t think there would be concerns over what happened if he got into a fender bender on the way there.
Tesla’s are the most deadly vehicles per accident, for everyone not in one.
Removed by mod
Got a source for that? I’d be curious for a read through.
So your original comment is false technically. You said they are the worst “per accident”. The study you linked only looked at accidents with at least 1 fatality. That would ignore any accidents that might have resulted in a fatality, but due to the safety of the car, there were only injuries with no death. Granted that applies to the other cars as well, but at least something to note.
Also there’s this quote from the article that contradicts your assertion.
“Most of these vehicles received excellent safety ratings, performing well in crash tests at the IIHS and NHTSA, so it’s not a vehicle design issue,”
The design of Tesla’s should not take a hit like this because the drivers suck.
I wouldn’t trust a cyber truck to even blow up correctly.
When I look at his background. 19 years of military service at the sharp end, does not leave a person “fully whole”. The US also has a history of neglecting the mental health of its service members.
This suicide might have more to do with those factors, than politics. The apparent political statement might just have been a final cry for attention.
The US neglects mental health in general. Cluster B’s end up in charge because they lack basic empathy. When they get there the first thing they do is try to make sure they never get outed as a cluster B. After all they know what they do is wrong but think they can just tell enough lies to fool people. They gut any mental health system they can. Just look at that traitor reagan. He gutted the national system and forty years later we have a homeless population full of untreated mentally Ill.
Further, nobody willingly leaves the military at 19 years. 20 years and you get retirement pay for the rest of your life–19 gets you nothing.
Maybe he had a medical retirement, which is fully possible for any number of reasons, but…
Probably he did something egregious to get kicked out at 19 years. Leaders will often let servicemembers near 20 years retire when they’re guilty of wrongdoing (in consideration of the many years served beforehand). To cut short a retirement career is to make an example of a person for doing something awful.
Edit: He was still active duty and stationed in Germany, making my whole comment moot. My bad. That’s what I get for not reading the article before commenting ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Quick article skim, but I didn’t see where it said he was ex-military. I see a lot of past tense that could be interpreted as that, or as “the guy is dead and entirely past tense now”. I may have missed it.
Maybe he is trying to say something about the president elect’s relationship with teslas owner.
I can imagine that relationship could seem troubling if you were a fan
No one supports Trump for logical reasons. He’s the emotional choice.
When you get emotionally involved, crazy is a small step away
Also pretty easy to be betrayed by Trump: he claims to hold every possible stance on every issue. Then, he acts on only one person’s benefit: Trump.
One of the Trump stories I re-post all the time is how he had a lottery where the top prize was dinner with him at the White House. They ran the lottery for months and there was never a single winner.
I once got a reply from a MAGoo saying that this was no different than when another pol sends an email asking you personally to contribute.
You’d think a green beret would be better at blowing shit up
I think they tend to do more training and support of friendly local forces. May have been upset with the Afghan war exit, I don’t think it would have gone well for people he may have had contact with.
Did he not succeed? Seemed to blow up pretty good.
What did they blow up? Their own vehicle and a piece of the road? Some random bystanders? A few thousands of damage to the hotel maybe? I don’t know their goals, but I don’t think that’s successful if they wanted anything more than attention seeking. (edit: which honestly seems like it could be the goal, why else have fireworks instead of fertilizer?)
Compare with the Oklahoma City bombing.
Wasn’t flexible enough
Turns out if you want to use a cybertruck as an explosive weapon you need to put it on its side due to the way the walls of the vehicle contain the explosion.
Classic cybertruck-as-weapon noob mistake.
“This side toward enemy”. Built so strong it directs the blast out the open face of the bed.
I’m spitballing here, but it was just a bunch of fireworks used as the actual bomb, correct?
I’m sure if they did the fertilizer/ OKC thing that it would have blown up a lot better instead of just catching on fire, but the stupid thing also probably doesn’t have good enough cargo capacity to carry enough accelerant
He was likely making a statement and wanted fire and noise more than demolition and death (granted he also probably didn’t care if some people around it got hurt). It’s pathetic.
Probably, otherwise, why not drive it through the doors into the lobby?
I think it went exactly according to his plan.
All of the shooters and this guy have been trump fans. That’s the thing about patriotism. If you use it as rhetoric but attack the foundation, the rah rah patriots tend to want to blow your head off.
Gonna be a interesting 4 years
Normal isn’t returning after Trump’s next four years just like it didn’t return in the last four years.
We’re already in a new political reality in America. We might as well acknowledge that and start to engage with it.
Shit is going to get weird. Talk to your neighbors, see if you can find community support groups, that sort of thing will carry you through a lot more than just about anything else.
Also if you have the spare time and income, take a stop the bleed style class.
