Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Sheriff Kevin McMahill speaks to media at the department headquarters in Las Vegas, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025, about suspect Matthew Livelsberger and the Tesla Cybertruck explosion at the Trump International Hotel.
| Photo Credit: AP

The highly decorated soldier who exploded a Tesla Cybertruck outside the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas used generative AI including ChatGPT to help plan the attack, Las Vegas police said Tuesday, January 7, 2025.

Nearly a week after 37-year-old Matthew Livelsberger fatally shot himself, officials said according to writings, he didn’t intend to kill anyone else.

An investigation of Livelsberger’s searches through ChatGPT indicates he was looking for information on explosive targets, the speed at which certain rounds of ammunition would travel and whether fireworks were legal in Arizona.

Kevin McMahill, sheriff of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, called the use of generative AI a “game-changer” and said the department was sharing information with other law enforcement agencies.

“This is the first incident that I’m aware of on U.S. soil where ChatGPT is utilized to help an individual build a particular device,” he said. “It’s a concerning moment.”

In an emailed statement, OpenAI said it was committed to seeing its tools used “responsibly” and that they’re designed to refuse harmful instructions.

“In this case, ChatGPT responded with information already publicly available on the internet and provided warnings against harmful or illegal activities. We’re working with law enforcement to support their investigation,” the emailed statement said.

Launched in 2022, ChatGPT is part of a broader set of technologies developed by the San Francisco-based startup OpenAI. Unlike previous iterations of so-called “large language models,” the ChatGPT tool is available for free to anyone with an internet connection and designed to be more user-friendly.

During a roughly half-hour-long news conference, Las Vegas police and federal law enforcement officials unveiled new details about the New Year’s Day explosion.

Among the specifics law enforcement disclosed: Livelsberger stopped during the drive to Las Vegas to pour racing-grade fuel into the Cybertruck, which then dripped the substance. The vehicle was loaded with 60 pounds (27 kilograms) of pyrotechnic material as well as 70 pounds (32 kilograms) of birdshot but officials are still uncertain exactly what detonated the explosion. They said Tuesday it could have been the flash from the firearm that Livelsberger used to fatally shoot himself.

Authorities also said they uncovered a six-page document that they have not yet released because they’re working with Defense Department officials since some of the material could be classified. They added that they still have to review contents on a laptop, mobile phone and smartwatch.

Among the items released was a journal Livelsberger kept titled “surveillance” or “surveil” log. It showed that he believed he was being tracked by law enforcement, but he had no criminal record and was not on the police department’s of FBI’s “radar,” the sheriff said Tuesday.

The log showed that he considered carrying out his plans in Arizona at the Grand Canyon’s glass skywalk, a tourist attraction on tribal land that towers high above the canyon floor. Assistant Sheriff Dori Koren said police don’t know why he changed his plans. The writings also showed he worried he would be labeled a terrorist and that people would think he intended to kill others besides himself, officials said.

Once stopped outside the hotel, video showed a flash in the vehicle that they said they believed was from the muzzle of the firearm Livelsberger used to shoot himself. Soon after that flash, video showed fire engulfing the truck’s cabin and even escaping the seam of the door, the result of considerable fuel vapor, officials said. An explosion followed.

Livelsberger, an Army Green Beret who deployed twice to Afghanistan and lived in Colorado Springs, Colorado, left notes saying the explosion was a stunt meant to be a “ wake up call ” for the nation’s troubles, officials said last week.

He left cellphone notes saying he needed to “cleanse” his mind “of the brothers I’ve lost and relieve myself of the burden of the lives I took.”

The explosion caused minor injuries to seven people but virtually no damage to the Trump International Hotel. Authorities said that Livelsberger acted alone.

Livelsberger’s letters touched on political grievances, societal problems and domestic and international issues, including the war in Ukraine. He wrote that the U.S. was “terminally ill and headed toward collapse.”

Investigators had been trying to determine if Livelsberger wanted to make a political point, given the Tesla and the hotel bearing the president-elect’s name.

Livelsberger harbored no ill will toward President-elect Donald Trump, law enforcement officials said. In one of the notes he left, he said the country needed to “rally around” him and Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

A highly decorated Army soldier who fatally shot himself in a Tesla Cybertruck just before it blew up outside the Trump hotel in Las Vegas left notes saying the New Year’s Day explosion was a stunt to serve as a “wake-up call” for the country’s ills, investigators said Friday, January 3, 2025.

Matthew Livelsberger, a 37-year-old Green Beret from Colorado Springs, Colorado, also wrote in notes he left on his cellphone that he needed to “cleanse” his mind “of the brothers I’ve lost and relieve myself of the burden of the lives I took.” Livelsberger served in the Army since 2006 and deployed twice to Afghanistan.

“This was not a terrorist attack, 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,” Livelsberger wrote in one letter found by authorities and released Friday.

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The explosion caused minor injuries to seven people but virtually no damage to the Trump International Hotel. Authorities said that Livelsberger acted alone.

Livelsberger’s letters covered a range of topics including political grievances, societal problems and both domestic and international issues, including the war in Ukraine. He said in one letter that the U.S. was “terminally ill and headed toward collapse.”

Tesla engineers, meanwhile, helped extract data from the Cybertruck for investigators, including Livelsberger’s path between charging stations from Colorado through New Mexico and Arizona and on to Las Vegas, according to Assistant Sheriff Dori Koren.

“We still have a large volume of data to go through,” Koren said Friday. “There’s thousands if not millions of videos and photos and documents and web history and all of those things that need to be analyzed.”

The new details came as investigators were still trying to determine whether Livelsberger sought to make a political point with the Tesla and the hotel bearing the president-elect’s name.

Livelsberger harbored no ill will toward President-elect Donald Trump, law enforcement officials said. In one of the notes he left, he said the country needed to “rally around” Trump and Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

Mr. Musk has recently become a member of Mr. Trump’s inner circle. Neither Mr. Trump nor Mr. Musk was in Las Vegas on Wednesday, the day of the explosion. Both had attended Trump’s New Year’s Eve party at his South Florida estate.

“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 was struggling with PTSD and other issues,” Spencer Evans, the FBI special agent in charge in Las Vegas, said Friday.

Livelsberger died of a self-inflicted gunshot to the head. Investigators have not yet explained how Livelsberger shot himself inside the Cybertruck while simultaneously igniting fireworks and camp fuel packed inside, causing the explosion.

Among the charred items found inside were a handgun at Livelsberger’s feet, another firearm, fireworks, a passport, a military ID, credit cards, an iPhone and a smartwatch. Authorities said both guns were purchased legally.

In recent years Livelsberger confided to Alicia Arritt, a former girlfriend who had served as an Army nurse, that he faced significant pain and exhaustion she attributed to traumatic brain injury.

He opened up to Arritt, 39, whom he met and began dating in Colorado in 2018, about exhaustion, pain that kept him up at night, and reliving violence from his deployment in Afghanistan, Arritt said.

“My life has been a personal hell for the last year,” he told Arritt in text messages during their early days of dating that she shared with The Associated Press.

The Green Berets are highly trained U.S. Army special forces who specialize in guerrilla warfare and unconventional fighting tactics. Livelsberger rose through the ranks and deployed twice to Afghanistan and served in Ukraine, Tajikistan, Georgia and Congo, according to the Army. He recently returned from an overseas assignment in Germany and was on approved leave when he died.

He was awarded five Bronze Stars, including one with a valor device for courage under fire, a combat infantry badge and an Army Commendation Medal with valor.

Authorities searched a townhouse in Livelsberger’s hometown of Colorado Springs Thursday as part of the investigation. Neighbors said the man who lived there had a wife and a baby.

Across-the-street neighbor Cindy Helwig said she last saw him when he asked to borrow a tool to fix an SUV.

“He was a normal guy,” said Ms. Helwig.

The explosion came hours after 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar rammed a truck into a crowd in New Orleans’ famed French Quarter early on New Year’s Day, killing at least 14 people before being shot to death by police. The FBI says they believe Jabbar acted alone and that it is being investigated as a terrorist attack.

Days before blowing up a Tesla Cybertruck outside the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas, 37-year-old Army Ranger Matthew Livelsberger boasted to his ex-girlfriend about renting the vehicle, saying it made him “feel like Batman”.

Livelsberger, who was married and had a child, had not spoken to his ex-girlfriend Alicia Arritt since their breakup in 2021, the Denver Gazette reported.

At 9 am on December 29, three days before the explosion, he wrote to Arritt: “I rented a Tesla Cybertruck. It’s the s***.”

Seven minutes later, he texted her again: “I feel like Batman or halo.”

Batman, the iconic fictional superhero created by DC Comics, is known for his high-tech gadgets and his sleek Batmobile – a vehicle that symbolises power, innovation, and mystery.

Livelsberger – who was identified using his military ID – had allegedly shot himself in the mouth in the Cybertruck before the vehicle exploded, injuring seven people.

Image of Tesla Cybertruck that exploded in flames outside the Trump International Hotel, Las Vegas on Wednesday.

Tesla founder Elon Musk claimed that the explosion was an act of terrorism.

“The explosion was caused by very large fireworks and/or a bomb carried in the bed of the rented Cybertruck and is unrelated to the vehicle itself”, Musk wrote in a post on X.

A monitor displays an image of a burned semiautomatic firearm recovered from the Tesla Cybertruck.

CCTV footage showed the vehicle being driven up and down Las Vegas Boulevard before being parked in front of the hotel. It detonated moments later.

Here’s footage of the Tesla Cybertruck exploding in front of Trump’s hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada today. Hope everyone is safe! pic.twitter.com/kdO8N4XTLl

— Harry Sisson (@harryjsisson) January 1, 2025

“The evil knuckleheads picked the wrong vehicle for a terrorist attack. Cybertruck actually contained the explosion and directed the blast upwards. Not even the glass doors of the lobby were broken,” Musk wrote.

The highly decorated Army soldier inside a Tesla Cybertruck packed with fireworks that exploded outside Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas shot himself in the head just before detonation, authorities said Thursday, January 2, 2025.

The explosion caused minor injuries to seven people but virtually no damage to the hotel. Clark County Sheriff Kevin McMahill said Matthew Livelsberger, a 37-year-old Green Beret, likely planned a more damaging attack but the steel-sided vehicle absorbed much of the force from the crudely built explosive.

Damage from the blast was mostly limited to the interior of the truck because the explosion “vented out and up” and didn’t hit the Trump hotel doors just a few feet away, the sheriff said.

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“The level of sophistication is not what we would expect from an individual with this type of military experience,” said Kenny Cooper, a special agent in charge for the the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Authorities are still working to determine a motive.

“It’s not lost on us that it’s in front of the Trump building, that it’s a Tesla vehicle, but we don’t have information at this point that definitively tells us or suggests it was because of this particular ideology,” said Spencer Evans, the Las Vegas FBI’s special agent in charge.

Livelsberger had recently returned from an overseas assignment in Germany and was on approved leave when he died, according to a U.S. official.

A law enforcement official said investigators learned through interviews that he may have gotten into a fight with his wife about relationship issues shortly before he rented the Tesla and bought the guns. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation.

Among the charred items found inside the truck were a handgun at Livelsberger’s feet, another firearm, a number of fireworks, a passport, a military ID, credit cards, an iPhone and a smartwatch, McMahill said. Authorities said both guns were purchased legally.

Investigators identified the vehicle’s driver — who was burned beyond recognition — as Livelsberger, of Colorado Springs, on Thursday. The cause of death was suicide by gunshot, according to the Clark County coroner.

Livelsberger served in the Green Berets, highly trained special forces who work to counter terrorism abroad and train partners. He had served in the Army since 2006, rising through the ranks with a long career of overseas assignments, deploying twice to Afghanistan and serving in Ukraine, Tajikistan, Georgia and Congo, the Army said.

He was awarded a total of five Bronze Stars, including one with a valor device for courage under fire, a combat infantry badge and an Army Commendation Medal with valor.

McMahill said Livelsberger rented the Tesla electric vehicle in Denver on Saturday and the sheriff displayed a map showing that it was charged in the Colorado town of Monument near Colorado Springs on Monday. On New Year’s Eve, it was charged in Trinidad, Colorado, and three towns in New Mexico along the Interstate 40 corridor.

Then on Wednesday, the day of the explosion, it was charged in three Arizona towns before video showed it on the Las Vegas Strip about 7.30 a.m..

McMahill said investigators obtained charging station photos showing Livelsberger “was the individual that was driving this vehicle” and was alone.

“We’re not aware of any other subjects involved in this particular case,” the sheriff said.

Authorities searched a townhouse in Colorado Springs, Colorado, on Thursday as part of the investigation. Neighbors said the man who lived there had a wife and a baby and did not give any sign of posing a danger to anyone.

Cindy Helwig, who lives diagonally across a narrow street separating the homes, said she last saw the man she knew as Matthew about two weeks ago when he asked her if she had a tool he needed to fix the SUV he was working on.

“He was a normal guy,” said Helwig, who said she last saw his wife and baby earlier this week. Helwig noted that people in the townhome on a hill with views of the mountains don’t interact much except for when they’re getting the mail or walking their dogs.

The explosion of the truck, packed with firework mortars and camp fuel canisters, came hours after 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar rammed a truck into a crowd in New Orleans’ famed French Quarter early on New Year’s Day, killing at least 14 people before being shot to death by police. That crash was being investigated as a terrorist attack. The FBI said Thursday that they believe Jabbar acted alone, reversing its position from a day earlier that he likely worked with others.

Both Livelsberger and Jabbar spent time at the base formerly known as Fort Bragg, a massive Army base in North Carolina that is home to multiple Army special operations units. However, one of the officials who spoke to the AP said there is no overlap in their assignments at the base, now called Fort Liberty.

Chris Raia, FBI deputy assistant director, said Thursday that officials have found “no definitive link” between the New Orleans attack and the truck explosion in Las Vegas.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said Wednesday afternoon on X that “we have now confirmed that the explosion was caused by very large fireworks and/or a bomb carried in the bed of the rented Cybertruck and is unrelated to the vehicle itself.”

Mr. Musk has recently become a member of President-elect Donald Trump’s inner circle. Neither Mr. Trump nor Mr. Musk were in Las Vegas early Wednesday. Both had attended Mr. Trump’s New Year’s Eve party at his South Florida estate.