One person died and seven others were injured Wednesday when a Tesla Cybertruck that appeared to be carrying fireworks caught fire and exploded outside a Las Vegas hotel owned by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s company, authorities said.
Las Vegas Metropolitan Police and Clark County Fire Department officials said at a news conference that a rider died inside the futuristic-looking van and was running to get the frame out. Seven other people in the vicinity suffered minor injuries and several were transported to hospital.
The fire in the valet area of the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas was reported at 8:40 a.m., a county spokesperson said in a statement.
According to a law enforcement official, the truck was rented through the Turo app and appeared to involve a load of fireworks. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because it is not legal to speak publicly.
A Turo spokesperson did not respond to an emailed request for comment.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk said Wednesday afternoon has nothing to do with the vehicle itself. All vehicle telemetry positive at the time of the explosion.
“Tesla’s entire senior team is investigating this matter at this time,” Musk said in an earlier post on the platform after attending a New Year’s Eve party at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Resort. “We’ve never noticed anything like this. “
Law enforcement officials have not ruled out terrorism as a possible motive, a person familiar with the matter said. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss details of the investigation.
“I know you have a lot of questions,” Jeremy Schwartz, acting special agent in charge of the FBI’s Las Vegas office, told reporters, “we don’t have a lot of answers. “
President Joe Biden reported on the explosion.
The Las Vegas explosion came hours after a driver crashed a truck into a crowd in New Orleans’ famed French Quarter early on New Year’s Day, killing at least 10 other people before being shot and killed by police.
In Las Vegas, the witness Ana Bruce, visiting Brazil, listened to 3 explosions.
“In the first one we saw the fire, in the second I guess the battery or something like that, and in the third, the big one that devastated the entire domain and when everyone asked to evacuate and stay away,” Bruce said.
His traveling companion, Alcides Antunes, showed a video he took of the flames licking the silver vehicle.
The 64-story hotel is off the Las Vegas Strip and across the street from the Las Vegas Mall.
Eric Trump, a son of the president-elect and executive vice president of the Trump Organization, posted about the fire on the social media platform X. He praised the fire department and local law enforcement “for their swift response and professionalism.”
Associated Press writers Colleen Long and Zach Miller in Washington contributed to this report.