Tesla Cybertruck explodes outside Trump hotel in Las Vegas, killing one

LOS ANGELES, United States: At least one person was killed and seven wounded when a Tesla Cybertruck exploded outside a hotel belonging to US President-elect Donald Trump in Las Vegas, police said Wednesday.

US President Joe Biden said authorities were investigating any links between the Las Vegas explosion and an attack earlier Wednesday in New Orleans, where a truck plowed into a crowd of New Year’s revelers, killing at least 15.

However, Biden cautioned that no such links had yet been found. The FBI and local law enforcement said they believed the Tesla blast was an isolated incident.

The electric vehicle pulled up to the Trump International Hotel’s glass entrance before a “large explosion,” Las Vegas Sheriff Kevin McMahill told reporters.

Video footage shows the stainless steel truck parked at the hotel entrance before bursting into flames, followed by smaller explosions that appeared similar to fireworks.

McMahill said there was “one deceased individual inside the Cybertruck,” while seven people received “minor” injuries. He said the hotel had been evacuated.

He told a later news conference that the back of the truck contained gasoline and camping fuel canisters, as well as “large firework mortars”.

McMahill also said the fact that it was a Cybertruck “really limited the damage... because it had most of the blast go up through the truck and out,” noting that the glass doors of the hotel, just a few feet away, “were not even broken by that blast”.

Biden said the authorities were probing “any possible connection with the attack in New Orleans”.

“Thus far, there’s nothing to report on that score,” he said.

FBI agent Jeremy Schwartz described the Las Vegas blast as “an isolated incident”.

“We do not believe that there’s a bunch of folks out there supporting this or helping this,” Schwartz said.

Tesla chief Elon Musk said the explosion was “caused by very large fireworks and/or a bomb carried in the bed of the rented Cybertruck,” adding in a post on his social media platform X that it was “unrelated to the vehicle itself”.

Musk said earlier the “whole Tesla senior team” was investigating the blast, adding: “We’ve never seen anything like this.”

Police said they were still working to establish the cause of the explosion. US media, including NBC and CBS, reported that authorities were investigating it as a potential terror attack, citing unidentified sources.

The truck had been rented in Colorado through the carsharing company Turo, police said.

There had been indications that the suspect in the New Orleans attack had been inspired by the Islamic State group, Biden said.

McMahill said they had “no indication” so far that the blast in Las Vegas had any similar links to the jihadist group.

However, he added: “It’s a Tesla truck, and we know Elon Musk is working with President-elect Trump, and it’s the Trump tower.”

“So there’s obviously things to be concerned about there and that’s something we continue to look at,” McMahill said.

Musk, who backed Trump in the November election and was named by the Republican to head up a commission to trim government spending, said he would post more information “as soon as we learn anything.”