One dead after Tesla truck catches fire outside Trump Hotel in Las Vegas | Police news
Authorities say they are investigating the incident, which left seven people with minor injuries.
One person was killed and seven were injured after a Tesla Cybertruck lit up and exploded outside a hotel in Las Vegas that is partially owned by the United States President-elect Donald Trump.
The fire broke out around 8:40 a.m. local time (14:40 GMT) Wednesday in the service room of the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas, according to Las Vegas and Clark County police officials.
“We were told that a Cybertruck from 2024 pulled up in front of the hotel. And in fact, I can tell you, it stopped right up to the glass front door of the hotel,” Sheriff Kevin McMahill said on press conference. “We saw smoke start coming from the vehicle and then there was a big explosion from the truck.”
Details are still emerging, and officials have yet to confirm the cause of the explosion.
“I know you have a lot of questions,” Jeremy Schwartz, acting special agent in charge of the Las Vegas office for the FBI, told reporters. “We don’t have a lot of answers.”
Authorities said the truck appeared to be transporting fireworks, and a person was found dead inside the vehicle. Several people who were near the explosion received help for minor injuries.
One witness, Ana Bruce, told the Associated Press news agency that she heard three explosions that occurred as a result of the fire.
“The first one [happened] where we saw the fire,” said Bruce. “The second one, I guess, was a battery or something like that, and the third one was the big one that blew up the whole area and that was when everyone was told to evacuate and stay away.”
The incident happened a few hours after car attack in the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, in which at least 10 people died, which authorities are investigating as a possible act of terrorism.
The suspect in that case is believed to have been carrying an improvised explosive device, or IED, in his truck at the time of the car impact.
Sheriff McMahill acknowledged that his officers were “very well aware of what happened in New Orleans” and that the incident could help their investigation. But he failed to connect the two.
“As you can imagine, with the explosion here on the iconic Las Vegas Boulevard, we are taking every precaution we need to take to protect our community. We are looking for secondary devices,” McMahill said at a news conference, adding that there does not appear to be any further threat to the community.
The Cybertruck explosion comes as Trump prepares to take office for a second term on January 20.
Part of his new administration includes close advisers, such as the tech billionaire and Tesla CEO Elon Muskwho was chosen by Trump to co-lead a yet-to-be-formed non-governmental body called Department of Government Efficiency.
Trump pitched the new entity as an advisory body that would help streamline the federal government.
In a social media post, Musk said Tesla, the electric vehicle company he founded, had been investigating the incident since Wednesday.
“The entire Tesla senior team is looking into this matter right now,” Musk wroteadding, “We’ve never seen anything like this.”
