AUSTIN, TX- A 28-year-old Orlando, Florida man is under arrest for an alleged plot to commit a “mass casualty event” at Tesla’s Texas headquarters during a “Cybertruck” promotion being attended by the billionaire founder of Tesla, Elon Musk.
Paul Ryan Overeem was booked on suspicion of making a terroristic threat, a third-degree felony, according to an arrest warrant lodged in Travis County, NBC News reports.
In an Instagram chat, Overeem, using the screen name “ufotnotialumis,” made a series of threats on Nov. 9 targeting the event that was held on Nov. 30 in Austin, Texas, police said. Musk did attend the event, although the arrest warrant didn’t indicate he was a specific target.
Among the threats were: “But yeah, so at teh [sic] Tesla event, I’m planning to attach [sic] so up to you guys to stop me,” “I plan on killing people at the even [sic] ok [sic] November 30th and I would like you to do something about it so I don’t have to,” and “I wanna die.” His threats seemed like they were intended for law enforcement.
The suspect also appeared to have issues with modern technology, as indicated by the following:
“I wanna die. My thoughts haven’t been free for over a year. All the electronics around me,” Overeem wrote, the arrest warrant noted.
Travis County detective Jennifer Boland said that the statements made by Overeem showed the potential for him to “carry out his threats of a mass casualty event.”
When asked if the suspect had any weapons on him when arrested, a sheriff’s spokesperson declined to answer.
Authorities reached out to Instagram to ascertain the owner of the screen name “ufotnoitalumis,” which was traced back to Overeem. The arrest affidavit said that his Florida-registered Chevy Tahoe was then spotted in Austin.
His phone pinged in west Austin, and he was arrested in a McDonald’s parking lot by a police SWAT team.
According to jail records, Overeem was booked on Nov. 29 and held in lieu of a $300,000 bail. Overeem has no ties to the Austin area police said, and it wasn’t immediately clear if he had retained legal counsel by Friday, Dec. 1.
Musk has been the target of inflammatory rhetoric recently over comments on his social media platform X, including by the White House. Musk has also been a target of the left since he purchased X.
Since Musk purchased the company, he has allowed free speech back on the platform, including from the right, and lifted the suspension of former President Donald Trump, enraging the radical left.
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