The active-duty Green Beret soldier who died after blowing up a Tesla Cybertruck in front of a Trump hotel in Las Vegas on New Year's Day left a note calling the attack a "wake-up call" for the country, investigators said Friday.
"Americans only pay attention to spectacles and violence. What better way to get my point across than a stunt with fireworks and explosives?" Master Sgt. Matthew Livelsberger, the career Special Forces operative who detonated the rented Cybertruck and died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, wrote in the recovered note. "Why did I personally do it now? I need to cleanse my mind of the brothers I've lost and relieve myself of the burden of the lives I took."
The note was released as the latest detail in an investigation that had sought a motive in the vehicle bombing by Livelsberger, who was assigned to the 10th Special Forces Group headquartered at Fort Carson, Colorado, and stationed in Stuttgart, Germany. In what appeared Friday to be a bizarre coincidence, an Army veteran killed 14 people celebrating in New Orleans in the early morning of New Year's Day using a rental truck with an Islamic State terrorist group flag.
"Although this incident is more public and more sensational than usual, it ultimately appears to be a tragic case of suicide involving a heavily decorated combat veteran who is struggling with PTSD and other issues," FBI agent Spencer Evans told reporters at a press conference late Friday in Las Vegas, speaking about Livelsberger and post-traumatic stress disorder.
In the note, Livelsberger claimed the truck bombing was "not a terrorist attack." Nobody was killed in the explosion in front of the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas, but seven people received minor injuries, according to The Associated Press.
"Fellow service members, veterans and all Americans, TIME TO WAKE UP!" Livelsberger wrote. "We are being led by weak and feckless leadership who only serve to enrich themselves."
The reason Livelsberger chose the Trump hotel and a Tesla Cybertruck was still unclear on Friday. President-elect Donald Trump is set to be sworn into office later this month, and he was elected with the help of the world's richest man, Elon Musk, who owns Tesla. Livelsberger was reportedly a supporter of Trump.
Meanwhile, officials stressed that, despite the timing and shared military backgrounds, there has been no direct link found between Livelsberger and the Army veteran attacker on Bourbon Street, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, who had a raft of personal issues including divorces that may have led to the deadly attack, which ended with him being killed by police.
The parallels are striking: Both men were Afghanistan War veterans, both utilized rented vehicles from the same company to carry out violent public acts on the same day, and both were stationed at Fort Liberty, North Carolina, during their careers.
But the similarities may stop there.
Jabbar, who left the military in 2020, was a civilian at the time of his attack. He also served only in conventional units at Fort Liberty and Fort Richardson, Alaska. Livelsberger, on the other hand, was still serving in the Army with 10th Special Forces Group in Germany and was just months away from completing the 20 years of service required for a full retirement package. He also had no obvious connections to radical ideologies. Defense officials say the two men never served in the same unit.
"I'm not tracking there's an overlap in their service record," Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said Friday, adding that no evidence of collaboration or shared ideology has emerged.
Las Vegas officials, after reviewing data on one of Livelsberger's phones, said that they found two letters that were "varying on the spectrum in terms of political grievances, issues … domestic issues, societal issues, a variety of other things including personal challenges as well."
On Friday, "The Shawn Ryan Show," a popular podcast about the military community, also shared what it claimed was an email from Livelsberger, sent on the morning of Dec. 31. In the email, Livelsberger allegedly detailed conspiratorial fears that he was being followed by federal agents. He also referenced being part of U.S. airstrikes in Afghanistan that he claimed killed civilians -- an event he implied was being covered up.
The email veered into unsubstantiated claims about recent drone activity that had made news headlines, alleging they were of Chinese origin and employed new, advanced technology. Livelsberger also wrote that his vehicle had already been rigged to explode, saying his bomb was keeping federal agents from approaching him, nearly 24 hours before the detonation outside the Trump-branded hotel.
Las Vegas officials said that they were "very well aware" that the podcast had the email, and Evans said that they had "strong evidence to suggest that it was the subject that wrote it, but we haven't conclusively proven that yet."
Two defense officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Military.com that Livelsberger had been experiencing difficulties recently, describing signs of apparent mental distress. However, it remains unclear whether he received formal treatment.
On Thursday evening, the Las Vegas police announced that the Clark County coroner ruled Livelsberger's death a suicide from a gunshot wound to the mouth. CNN reported Friday that he had been diagnosed with depression.
When asked about the report, Singh wouldn't confirm its details but did say that "the department has turned over all medical records to local law enforcement."
Livelsberger's personal life had not been steady either.
Public records show that he married his first wife in 2012 in Ohio. However, the couple ended up divorcing about five years later, according to the wife's friend who spoke with multiple media outlets and described Livelsberger as controlling and unsupportive.
A former girlfriend also told multiple outlets that Livelsberger's behavior changed in 2019 after he returned from a Middle East deployment with a traumatic brain injury, saying that he became isolated and struggled with mental issues.
He had at least three combat deployments, earning numerous awards for valor. That, in addition to the high cadence of training in special operations units, would've likely exposed him to blasts that can cause brain injuries. Those injuries have become the signature wound of the military in recent years and in some cases can be more severe than the physical wounds typically associated with war.
Military.com has reported extensively on the impacts and devastating symptoms that brain injuries resulting from blasts are causing for service members and veterans, and the fact that they are linked to an increased risk of suicide.
Public records show that Livelsberger ended up remarrying another woman, and social media posts reveal that the couple had a child together this year.
However, according to the New York Post, which spoke with law enforcement sources, that marriage was also falling apart over allegations of infidelity.
The Post reported that Livelsberger's new wife accused him of infidelity around Christmas, and she ended the relationship six days before his death in Las Vegas.
Livelsberger's girlfriend told the Denver Gazette that she was one of several former girlfriends that he reached out to in the last few days of his life.
Jabbar's life also started to unravel as he ended his Army service.
He filed for the first of two divorces in 2012, according to North Carolina court records. Once he left active-duty service and transitioned to the Army Reserve in 2015, his first wife told The New York Times on Wednesday, he "struggled with adjusting to civilian life."
Despite remarrying a few years later, Jabbar still struggled with personal relationships and money became a problem.
The second marriage also ended in divorce, and court records show that Jabbar was struggling financially. In the same year, he was discharged from the Army reserves for "unsatisfactory participation," Army records show.
Financial disclosures filed by Jabbar portrayed the couple as relatively impoverished, with most of their bank accounts completely empty despite him having a job with the consulting company Deloitte that paid him a salary of more than $120,000 a year.
Jabbar said that he was personally spending nearly $9,000 a month -- with around $2,000 of that just on credit card debt and student loans -- while taking home only around $7,500.
Meanwhile, his second wife, in her filings, said that Jabbar had been wasting their money, including "excessive cash withdrawals, gifts to paramours, unreasonable and unnecessary spending, and the improper accumulation of debt."
The divorce was granted in September 2022.
The FBI told reporters that, in one of the videos he posted online, Jabbar said "he originally planned to harm his family and friends but was concerned that news headlines would not focus on the 'war between the believers and the disbelievers.'"
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