Matthew Alan "Berg" Livelsberger (22 July 1987-1 January 2025) was a US Army Special Forces master sergeant who, on 1 January 2025, carried out a suicide bombing outside the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas in Paradise, Nevada. Livelsberger wrote that his "stunt with fireworks and explosives" was meant to be a "wake up call" towards a collapsing United States while also enabling him to cleanse his mind of the comrades he lost in battle.
Biography
Matthew Livelsberger was born in Arizona in 1987 and raised in Bucyrus, Ohio. He served in the US Army for 19 years, being deployed to Afghanistan, Ukraine, Congo, Tajikistan, and Georgia and receiving commendations for his service, including two Bronze Stars. He reached the rank of master sergeant while serving in the 10th Special Forces Group as a communications and intelligence specialist. In 2018, he divorced his first wife due to his support for Donald Trump, whom he voted for in 2024. However, he developed mental illness after his military tour in the Middle East. He was posted to Germany before going on leave in Colorado and disappearing in December 2024. Six days after breaking up with his wife over an argument about adultery, he loaded a rented Tesla Cybertruck with fireworks, gas tanks, and camping fuel, which he fitted with a detonation system. At 8:39 AM on 1 January 2025, he pulled into the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas, and he shot himself before his truck exploded. 7 people were injured, but the vehicle contained the explosion, which did not break the glass doors of the hotel's lobby entrance.
Livelsberger had written letters calling on veterans and civilians alike to "wake up" to the "weak and feckless leaders who only serve to enrich themselves," and suggesting that veterans could remove the Democratic Party from power by force if necessary. He also criticized income inequality, DEI efforts in the military, and the coverup of war crimes in Afghanistan's Nimruz Province in 2019. He also claimed that the government was monitoring him due to his knowledge of war crimes and classified details about an advanced US drone program; he claimed that the USA and China both deployed "gravitic propulsion systems" and that Chinese submarines were responsible for the 2024 Northeastern United States drone sightings.