One dies as Tesla cybertruck explodes outside Trump hotel in Las Vegas

A Tesla Cybertruck exploded outside a hotel belonging to the United States President-elect, Donald Trump, in Las Vegas, killing at least one person and wounding seven, 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 ploughed into a crowd of New Year’s revellers, killing at least 15.

However, Biden cautioned that no such links had yet been found.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation and local law enforcement said they believed the Tesla blast was an isolated incident, but they were investigating whether it was an “act of terrorism.”

The electric vehicle—made by the company owned by Trump’s backer, Elon Musk—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 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.”

He said that an FBI joint terrorism task force was investigating with two main goals — to confirm the identity of the “subject involved in this incident” and to determine “whether this was an act of terrorism or not.”

– Concerns over Trump-Musk link –

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 are 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 in a post on his social media platform X that the explosion was “unrelated to the vehicle itself.”

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

The truck had been rented in Colorado through the carsharing company Turo, police said — the same app that was used to rent the vehicle in the New Orleans attack.

McMahill said that was a “coincidence… that we have to continue to look into.”

A spokesperson for the app, used by millions of people in the United States, said they were working with law enforcement, but that neither renter “had a criminal background that would have identified them as a security threat.”

AFP