One person died and seven people were injured on Wednesday morning when a Tesla Cybertruck caught fire and exploded in front of a Donald Trump hotel in Las Vegas. According to a police officer, the truck was rented through the Turo app and apparently was carrying fireworks.
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Tesla's CEO, Elon Musk, said on Wednesday evening in X that "we have confirmed that the explosion was caused by very large fireworks and/or a bomb carried in the rented Cybertruck's box and is not related to the vehicle itself. All vehicle telemetry was positive at the time of the explosion."
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"At this moment, Tesla's entire senior team is investigating this matter," Musk added in a post made earlier on the platform after attending a New Year's party at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort. "We have never seen anything like this."
Was the explosion of the Tesla Cybertruck a terrorist attack?
Police officers have not ruled out terrorism as a possible motive, said a person familiar with the matter.
"I know you have a lot of questions," said Jeremy Schwartz, acting special agent in charge of the FBI office in Las Vegas. "We don't have many answers."
In the Turo app is where war veteran Shamsud-Din Jabbar rented the pickup truck he used to plow into a crowd in New Orleans, resulting in the death of 15 people. The attack is being investigated as a terrorist act, and a flag of the Islamic State was found in the vehicle.
President Joe Biden was informed about the incident. The truck explosion occurred hours after a driver rammed a vehicle into a crowd in the famous French Quarter of New Orleans on New Year's Eve, killing at least 15 people before being shot down by the police. That crash is being investigated as a terrorist attack, and the police believe the driver did not act alone.
In Las Vegas, witness Ana Bruce, who was visiting from Brazil, said she heard three explosions.
"The first one was where we saw the fire, the second one, I suppose, was the battery or something like that, and the third one was the biggest, which filled the entire area with smoke, and it was the moment when everyone was told to evacuate and move away," Bruce pointed out.
The 64-story Trump International Hotel is located just off the Las Vegas Strip and across from the Fashion Show Las Vegas shopping center.