Authorities say they are investigating the incident, in which seven people suffered minor injuries.
One person has died and seven were injured after a Tesla Cybertruck caught fire and exploded outside a Las Vegas hotel partly owned by US President-elect Donald Trump.
The fire started around 8:40 a.m. local time (14:40 GMT) on Wednesday in the valet area of the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas, according to Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department and Clark County officials.
“We were told a 2024 Cybertruck pulled into the front of the hotel. And in fact, I can tell you, it pulled up to the glass front doors of the hotel,” Sheriff Kevin McMahill said at a news conference. “We saw smoke start to come out of the vehicle and then there was an explosion. big from the truck.
Details are still emerging, while the cause of the explosion has not yet been confirmed by officials.
“I know you have a lot of questions,” Jeremy Schwartz, acting special agent in charge of the Las Vegas office for the FBI, told reporters. “We don’t have many answers.”
Authorities said the truck appeared to be carrying fireworks and a person was found dead inside the vehicle. Several people in the vicinity of the explosion were treated for minor injuries.
A witness, Ana Bruce, told the Associated Press news agency that she heard three explosions that resulted from the fire.
“The first (occurred) where we saw the fire,” Bruce said. “The second one, I think, was the battery or something, and the third one was the big one that smoked the whole area and that’s when everybody was told to evacuate and stay away.”
The incident came hours after a car attack in the Louisiana city of New Orleans that killed at least 10 people, in what authorities are investigating as a possible act of terrorism.
The suspect in that case is believed to have been carrying improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, in his truck at the time of the car crash.
Sheriff McMahill acknowledged that his officers were “very aware of what happened in New Orleans” and that the incident could inform their investigation. But he stopped short of connecting the two.
“As you can imagine, with an explosion here on the iconic Las Vegas strip, we are taking all the precautions we need to take to keep our community safe. We are looking for secondary equipment,” McMahill said at the press conference, adding that there does not appear to be any further threat to the community.
The Cybertruck explosion comes as Trump prepares to take office for a second term on January 20.
Part of his incoming administration includes close advisers, such as tech billionaire and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, whom Trump has tapped to co-head an as-yet-unformed nongovernmental body called the Department of Energy Efficiency. The government.
Trump has set up the new entity as an advisory panel to help improve the federal government.
In a social media post, Musk said Tesla, the electric vehicle company he founded, was looking into Wednesday’s incident.
“The entire senior team at Tesla is investigating this matter now,” Musk wrote, adding, “We’ve never seen anything like this.”
