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 Metro Police and Clark County Fire Rescue said at a news convention that a user died inside the futuristic van and that they were racing to get out of the body. Seven other people nearby for minor injuries and several were taken to the hospital.
The fireplace in the valet area of the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas reported at 8:40 a. m. , a county spokesperson said in a statement.
According to a law enforcement official, the truck had been rented through the Turo app and appeared to be carrying a load of fireworks. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.
A Turo spokesman did not respond to a request for comments sent by email.
The CEO of Tesla, Elon Musk, said Wednesday afternoon in X that “we have now shown that the explosion caused through a very giant artificial fire and/or bomb transported in the bed of the rented cyber -up and is not related to the vehicle itself.
“The whole Tesla senior team is investigating this matter right now,” 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 seen anything like this.”
The officials responsible for enforcing the law have not governed terrorism as an imaginable reason, said a user familiar with the matter. The user spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not legal to speak publicly about the main points of the investigation.
“I know you have many questions,” Jeremy Schwartz told journalists, a special interim agent in the Las Vegas office rate of the FBI, “we don’t have many answers. “
President Joe Biden reported on the explosion.
The Las Vegas explosion came hours after a driver rammed a truck into a crowd in New Orleans’ famed French Quarter early on New Year’s Day, killing at least 10 people before being shot to death by police.
In Las Vegas, witness Ana Bruce, visiting from Brazil, said she heard three explosions.
“The first one where we saw the fire, moment one, I guess, the battery or something, and the third the big one that smoked total dominance and the moment when everyone asked to evacuate and stay away,” Bruce said.
His traveling companion, Alcides Antunes, showed a video he had taken of flames licking the silver vehicle.
The 64-story hotel is just off the Las Vegas Strip and across the street from the Fashion Show Las Vegas shopping mall.
Eric Trump, son of the president-elect and executive vice president of the Trump Organization, posted on the chimney on the social media platform X. He praised local smokestacks and police “for their reaction and professionalism. “
Associated Press Colleen Long and Zach Miller writers in Washington contributed to this report.