- A 28-year-old man was arrested for planning an attack at Tesla’s delivery event in Austin.
- He is believed to hate technology and had previously threatened Tesla on Instagram.
- After his arrest, he said: “I was going to shoot up Elon Musk and the plant,” local news reported.
A Florida man was arrested this week after he was alleged to have planned a “mass casualty event” at Tesla’s Cybertruck promotional event on Thursday.
Paul Ryan Overeem, 28, is believed to have driven to Texas specifically for the event at the Tesla Giga Texas factory in Austin. Traffic cameras spotted his vehicle on a highway in southwest Austin on November 28.
He had already been under investigation for threatening posts he made under the name “ufotnoitalumis” in an Instagram group chat, local news station KVUE reported.
On November 9, Overeem posted: “I plan on killing people at that even (sic) ok (sic) November 30th and I would like you do something about it so I don’t have to.”
“If I’m saying I’m gonna kill people then you should take this seriously,” read another message, per KVUE.
Screenshot / Polly Thompson
It appears that Overeem hated modern technology, posting “my thoughts haven’t been free for over a year. All the electronics around me,” according to the arrest warrant seen by NBC.
Overeem remains in custody on a $300,000 bond after being arrested in a McDonald’s parking lot by the Travis County Sheriff’s Office. He was booked on suspicion of making a terroristic threat.
After his arrest, Overeem told police officers that he had weapons in his car and was planning on committing suicide, CBS Austin reported.
“I was going to shoot up Elon Musk and the plant,” he reportedly said.
When taken into custody Overeem said he believed Elon Musk and Shivon Zilis, a Neuralink director and the mother of twins with Musk, were watching him, CBS Austin added.
Musk has not commented on the arrest.
Travis County Police Department and Tesla did not immediately respond to Business Insider’s request for comment.
