Tesla Cybertruck explodes outside Trump’s Las Vegas hotel; 1 dead, 7 injured
Jan 01, 2025
One person was killed and seven others injured when a Tesla Cybertruck exploded outside a Las Vegas hotel owned by President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday morning, police said.
The person who died was inside the vehicle when it blew up, authorities said. Rescue crews were still working to get the person’s body out in the afternoon.
The cause of the explosion remained unclear. The Cybertruck pulled up to the valet entrance at Trump International Las Vegas — just off the Strip — around 8:30 a.m., cops said. It appeared there was a load of fireworks inside the vehicle.
Seven people were treated for minor injuries after the explosion. Guests were briefly kept inside the hotel Wednesday morning while firefighters put out the blazing vehicle. They were later moved to the nearby Resorts World hotel.
“I know you have a lot of questions,” FBI agent Jeremy Schwartz said at a press conference. “We don’t have a lot of answers.”
The exploding Cybertruck had been rented on an app called Turo, which is similar to Airbnb but for cars, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press.
The same app was used to rent a truck in New Orleans before a man drove that truck into a crowd in the French Quarter around 3:15 a.m. on New Year’s Day. At least 10 people were killed in that attack, and authorities said the driver did not act alone.
New Orleans police found more explosive devices in the French Quarter and described the truck crash as a terrorist attack. However, police did not say if the two incidents were connected.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk said his company would also attempt to figure out what happened. It was unclear if the explosion had anything to do with the car’s technology.
“Will post more information as soon as we learn anything,” Musk wrote on his social media platform. “We’ve never seen anything like this.”
With News Wire Services