An electric truck caught fire outside a glass door at the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas on Wednesday morning, killing one person and injuring seven others, raising many questions about the type of vehicle and location of the fire, police and FBI officials said.
Just hours before the incident, a driver drove a pickup truck into a crowd celebrating the New Year in New Orleans, killing 15 people and injuring dozens more. The FBI is investigating at least one suspected improvised explosive device found at the scene of an alleged act of terrorism.
“As you can imagine, with the explosions taking place on the iconic Strip in Las Vegas, we are taking all necessary precautions,” said Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Sergeant Kevin McMahill. to keep the community safe “We’re looking for assistive devices. We’re taking our time and we’re going to make sure we stay safe in our community.
McMahill said there did not appear to be any further threat from the explosion, which killed the unidentified driver and slightly injured seven others. He urged the community to stay away from the area.
McMahill said they are investigating some leads but could not immediately release any other information about the incident, which was reported at 8:40 a.m. Wednesday.
“But obviously a Cybertruck … the Trump Hotel — there are a lot of questions we have to answer as we move forward,” he said.
A Tesla Cybertruck caught fire and exploded outside the lobby of President-elect Donald Trump’s hotel in Las Vegas on Wednesday. At least one person died and seven others were injured.
(Wade Vandervoort/AFP via Getty Images)
The Cybertruck is built by Musk’s company Tesla. Musk is a member of President-elect Trump’s inner circle. This sparked fears on social media that it was a politically motivated attack.
Jeremy Schwartz, the FBI’s acting special agent in charge of the Las Vegas office, said there are still many unanswered questions but that they have deployed additional resources to “figure out what happened.”
McMahill said that in 2024, the Cybertruck parked in front of the hotel “all the way to the glass door of the hotel.”
“We saw smoke start coming from the vehicle and then there was a massive explosion in the truck,” McMahill said.
A video posted by a user on
Eric Trump, one of the president-elect’s sons, thanked first responders for their “quick response and professionalism.”
“The safety and well-being of our guests and employees remains our top priority,” he wrote on X.
Musk, the owner of X, wrote on the social media platform that “the entire Tesla senior team is now investigating this matter.”
“We’ve never seen anything like this,” he added.
