Soldier in Tesla blast had PTSD and feared US ‘collapse,’ officials say

The Green Beret who blew up a Tesla Cybertruck outside the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas this week and took his own life had written that he wanted to send a “wake-up call” to the country, authorities said Friday.

In notes recovered by investigators from one of his phones and made public Friday, Master Sgt. Matthew Alan Livelsberger praised President-elect Donald Trump and wrote that “our soldiers are done fighting wars without end states or clear objectives.”

On New Year’s Day, he pulled the Tesla, which was packed with explosives, into the driveway of the hotel and fatally shot himself before the vehicle went up in flames, injuring seven bystanders and stirring alarm far beyond Las Vegas.

Nothing about what might have led him to take his life had emerged publicly until Friday, when authorities disclosed that Livelsberger, a veteran of several combat tours, had post-traumatic stress disorder and had written in his phone that the country was “headed toward collapse.”

“This was not a terrorist attack,” the note said. “It was a wake-up call. Americans only pay attention to spectacles and violence. What better way to get my point across than a stunt with fireworks and explosives?”

At a news conference Friday, Assistant Sheriff Dori Koren of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said that in the notes, Livelsberger had gone on to “explain a variety of other grievances and issues — some political, some personal.”

Livelsberger, 37, had been stationed in Germany and was back in the United States on leave. He rented the Tesla truck in Denver on Dec. 28, according to police, and spent a few days driving from Colorado to Nevada before making his way to the Trump hotel Wednesday.

After firefighters extinguished the blaze, they found a military ID and a passport that matched Livelsberger’s identity. Also in the Tesla were two semiautomatic handguns, which Livelsberger had legally purchased, and a collection of fireworks and fuel enhancers.

In one note, Livelsberger wrote: “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.”

Alicia Arritt, a former Army nurse who dated Livelsberger in 2018 and was a friend of his until he died, said he struggled with mental health issues that he tried to conceal so he could continue to serve in the Special Forces.