Cybertruck explosion outside Trump Hotel Las Vegas leaves one dead

On Wednesday morning, a Tesla Cybertruck exploded just outside of the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas, leaving one dead and seven people injured.

According to the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, the Cybertruck was rented in Colorado via car rental service provider Turo. The person who rented the car drove it up to Las Vegas until he reached the hotel, arriving around 7:30 local time.

The bed of the truck was covered in canisters of gasoline and firework mortars. An eyewitness posted a video on X, capturing the burning Cybertruck. She claims that the truck “blew up” in front of the hotel.

“I and my husband were literally standing where the luggage is in the footage. I just saw it pulled up, and it lowered itself like a bus, and boom it goes. It first looked like fireworks or something but then I immediately feared our life thinking it could be a bomb and ran,” the witness says.

The police and other law enforcement agencies are currently investigating the case. “With an explosion here on iconic Las Vegas Boulevard, we are taking all of the precautions that we need to take to keep our community safe,” Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Sheriff Kevin McMahill said during a media briefing Wednesday.

A Turo spokesperson stated to TechCrunch that the company is partnering with law enforcement agencies to investigate the incident. He adds that he doesn’t believe the renter had a criminal background.

The police have identified the man who rented the car, but won’t release the name of that individual at this time.

One person died and seven people got injured due to the explosion. Officials state that the Cybertruck limited the damage that occurred inside of the valet of the Trump International Hotel.

Elon Musk, entrepreneur and owner of Tesla, the company that manufactures the Cybertruck, says that the Tesla senior team is investigating the incident. “We’ve never seen anything like this,” he stated 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,” Musk said a little while later, suggesting the car was perfectly fine before it exploded.

On Wednesday morning a fatal attack occurred in New Orleans, killing 15 people in the process. A driver drove a Ford truck into a crowd during the New Year’s celebration. Like the Cybertruck, the truck was rented via Turo. McMahill called this “a coincidence”, but also said authorities are looking into this to see whether there’s a link between both incidents.