Federal authorities have arrested a Colorado Springs man after investigators traced an alleged threat campaign that named Elon Musk, Tesla owners and members of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet.
According to a federal arrest affidavit summarized by KCNC-TV, the suspect is Carl Howard Payne, 58, who was taken into custody on Tuesday after a search warrant was executed at his home in Colorado Springs. Investigators said the case began with a set of emails sent to media outlets on March 20 that declared war on the Trump Cabinet and threatened killings of Tesla owners, drivers and occupants.
The messages, prosecutors said, were not limited to rhetoric. They allegedly described specific attack methods and made clear that Musk was the principal target. The affidavit quoted a line saying the Tesla chief executive and White House adviser was “no longer welcome to be alive.” Similar hard-copy versions of the message were later mailed to insurance company headquarters, with postmarks from Denver.
Authorities said Payne used a Proton email address, the Signal messaging app and a burner phone in an effort to conceal his identity. Investigators said they tied the accounts back to him through unusual login activity, traces left by a VPN or network provider, and a burner number that matched contact information Payne had used in a February unemployment application. The affidavit also described him as someone with extensive experience in technology management and software work, including nine years as an engineer and consultant in Microsoft Azure.
The report did not say that Payne carried out any physical attack. Instead, the federal case centers on interstate threats and the effort to identify who authored and distributed the declaration. Prosecutors charged him with making interstate threats, an offense that carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison and fines.
The case arrives amid a broader climate of political hostility and threats directed at public figures, businesses and symbols of the Trump administration’s agenda. Here, however, investigators say the evidence chain was especially digital, with the arrest affidavit describing a cross-check of online accounts, network activity and device information. That made the case less about a public manifesto than about the forensic trail that followed it.
Payne’s first hearing in federal court in Denver was scheduled for Tuesday. Until then, the allegations remain just that, but the arrest marks an early move by investigators to treat the declaration as more than bluster and to focus on the online and phone records that led them to the suspect.
