According to local officials, a Tesla Cybertruck exploded and caught fire just outside the Trump International Hotel entrance in Las Vegas on Wednesday morning, killing the occupant of the vehicle and wounding other people who were standing nearby.
Three senior law enforcement officials informed on the incident told NBC News that the strange detonation is being examined as a potential terrorist strike. There is still no known motive.
The explosion occurred just hours after a motorist carrying an ISIS flag in a rented pickup truck crashed into New Year’s Eve revelers on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, killing at least 15 people and leaving over 30 others injured before being shot dead by police.
According to Clark County/Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Sheriff Kevin McMahill, Turo is the company that hired the pickup truck and the Tesla involved in the Las Vegas explosion.
At a press conference, McMahill responded, “I don’t know,” when asked if the two occurrences were related. “But we are investigating whether there is any connectivity.”
According to a statement from Turo, the business is actively assisting investigators.
“We do not believe that either renter involved in the Las Vegas and New Orleans attacks had a criminal background that would have identified them as a security threat,” the business stated.
According to McMahill, authorities are aware that the Tesla was rented in Colorado, but they would not provide the identity of the victim of the fire.
He stated, “We do know who rented this truck,” but they have not discovered any connection to ISIS or any other terrorist group.
The FBI’s acting special agent in charge of the inquiry, Jeremy Schwartz, stated, “We think this is an isolated incident.”
With the assistance of Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who supplied footage of the Cybertruck at Tesla charging stations and had the truck unlocked after it auto-locked after the explosion, McMahill said authorities were able to follow the path the Tesla made to Las Vegas.
The sheriff stated that the Tesla exploded an hour later, around 15 seconds after it reached the hotel, after arriving in Las Vegas at 7:30 a.m.
At a press conference in the evening, McMahill played video of the explosion. “So the individual who was in the truck is obviously deceased,” he continued.
Musk, a senior Trump advisor, had already told X that the car was unrelated to the explosion.
Musk said, “We have now confirmed that the explosion is unrelated to the vehicle itself and was caused by very large fireworks and/or a bomb carried in the bed of the rented Cybertruck.” At the moment of the explosion, all vehicle telemetry was positive.
McMahill attested that the truck’s rear had big fireworks mortars and gasoline cannisters.
“I don t know how they were ignited,” the sheriff said. “The vehicle hasn’t been processed by us yet.
McMahill also reiterated that “there does not appear to be any further threat to our community now.”
Meanwhile, in New York City, extra police officers were assigned to Trump Tower as a precaution and the security perimeter was expanded to keep the public and traffic further away from the building, an NYPD spokesperson said.
According to Chicago police, security has also been increased at the Trump International Hotel and Tower.
The explosion outside Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas was reported about 8:40 a.m. local time, police said.
“We were told that a 2024 Cybertruck pulled up to the front of the hotel, and, in fact, I can tell you it pulled right up to the glass entrance doors of the hotel,” McMahill said at an earlier press conference. “We saw smoke start showing from the vehicle, and then an explosion from the truck occurs.”
Clark County Deputy Fire Chief Thomas Touchstone said that as first responders began to extinguish the fire, they “realized at the same time that there were multiple persons with injuries located around the vehicle.”
Of the seven people injured, Touchstone said, two were taken to University Medical Center of Southern Nevada in Las Vegas. But the injuries of all seven people are considered minor, he said.
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