Firework mortars and camp fuel canisters were found inside the Tesla Cybertruck that exploded outside President-elect Donald Trump’s Las Vegas hotel on Wednesday, killing a suspect in the vehicle and sparking an intense investigation into possible terrorism.
Las Vegas Metropolitan Police and the Clark County Fire Department confirmed that the explosion killed one person inside the truck and left seven bystanders with minor injuries. By Wednesday afternoon, authorities were still working to recover the body from the vehicle and begin processing evidence. President Joe Biden was briefed on the incident.
“Our number one goal is to ensure that we have the proper identification of the subject involved in this incident,” stated Jeremy Schwartz, acting special agent in charge of the FBI’s Las Vegas office.
“Following that, our second objective is to determine whether this was an act of terrorism or not.”
Police Sheriff Kevin McMahill revealed that the truck was rented in Colorado using the Turo app. However, authorities have not disclosed the renter’s identity, pending confirmation of whether it matches the deceased.
McMahill added that video footage from Tesla charging stations, provided by CEO Elon Musk, assisted in tracing the truck’s movements. The vehicle arrived in Las Vegas around 7:30 AM and entered the Trump International Hotel’s valet area approximately an hour later. The explosion occurred just 15 to 20 seconds after the truck parked.
At a news conference, officials showed video footage revealing charred firework mortars, canisters, and other explosive devices in the truck bed. The truck’s bed walls remained intact as the blast shot vertically rather than outward.
On Wednesday afternoon, Musk posted on X: “We have now confirmed that the explosion was caused by very large fireworks and/or a bomb carried in the bed of the rented Cybertruck and is unrelated to the vehicle itself. All vehicle telemetry was positive at the time of the explosion.”
Earlier, Musk remarked that Tesla’s senior team was investigating the explosion, stating, “We’ve never seen anything like this.”
Neither Trump nor Musk were in Las Vegas at the time of the explosion, as both had attended Trump’s New Year’s Eve party at his South Florida estate. Musk, who spent $250 million supporting Trump’s presidential campaign, is a member of Trump’s inner circle and has been named to co-lead an initiative to reduce government size and spending.
“This is a Tesla truck, and we know that Elon Musk is working with President-elect Trump, and it’s the Trump Tower,” McMahill said when asked about potential political links. “So there’s obviously things to be concerned about and it’s something we continue to look at.”
The Las Vegas explosion occurred just hours after a driver rammed a truck into a crowd in New Orleans’ French Quarter on New Year’s Day, killing at least 15 people before being shot dead by police. That incident is being investigated as a terrorist attack, and authorities suspect the driver did not act alone.
“We are absolutely investigating any connectivity to what happened in New Orleans as well as other attacks occurring worldwide,” McMahill said. “We aren’t ruling anything out.”
Turo, the rental platform used for the truck, issued a statement,
“We do not believe that either renter involved in the Las Vegas and New Orleans attacks had a criminal background that would have identified them as a security threat.”
Witness Ana Bruce, a tourist from Brazil, described hearing three explosions.
“The first one where we saw the fire, the second one, I guess, was the battery or something like that, and the third was the big one that smoked the entire area and was the moment when everyone was told to evacuate and stay away,” she said.
Her companion, Alcides Antunes, shared video footage showing flames engulfing the silver-coloured Cybertruck.
The Trump International Hotel, a 64-storey building, is located just off the Las Vegas Strip, near the Fashion Show Las Vegas shopping mall. Eric Trump, the president-elect’s son and a Trump Organization executive, posted on X to praise first responders for their swift and professional response.
Faridah Abdulkadiri
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