A cybertruck explodes outside the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas, killing one person and injuring seven others.

A Tesla Cybertruck exploded on New Year’s Day just outside the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, law enforcement officials confirmed. One person was killed and seven others reported minor injuries inside the Cybertruck, according to Las Vegas Sheriff Kevin McMahill.

At a news conference Friday evening, Las Vegas authorities showed video from multiple angles of the incident.

As seen in the video, there are gasoline cans, camp fuel cans, and a “large firework mortar,” which CNN reports authorities believe are connected to a driver-controlled explosive system. McMahill said the truck was leased in Colorado and was able to track its movements through Tesla charging stations and a license plate scanner, arriving in Las Vegas around 7:30 a.m. It is said that he was in front of the hotel about 15 seconds before the explosion occurred.

The FBI is also on scene. Authorities are evacuating hotels and seeking “assistive devices” just in case, but McMahill said “there appears to be no further threat to our community.”

According to authorities, around 8:40 a.m. PT, a 2024 Cybertruck arrived in the hotel lobby. “I saw smoke start coming out of the vehicle and then I saw a big explosion coming from the truck,” McMahill told reporters. Firefighters were dispatched to the scene within 4 minutes, and the fire was extinguished within an hour.

Another video shared by X shows a truck engulfed in flames just outside the hotel lobby. Several witnesses reported hearing at least one explosion, and we’ve embedded more videos below this story.

It is not yet clear what caused the fire. “We don’t have a lot of answers right now,” said FBI Special Agent Jeremy Schwartz. Authorities did not have details about the dead people inside the Cybertruck. We don’t even know if they were the drivers yet. “We’re investigating a number of leads, but we’re not ready to release that information to you just yet,” McMahill said.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk insists the explosion had nothing to do with the Cybertruck itself, saying the company was able to remotely access data from this particular Cybertruck to prove the explosion was not caused by the vehicle.

“We have confirmed that this explosion was caused by an oversized firework and/or bomb placed in the bed of a rented Cybertruck and was not related to the vehicle itself,” he wrote in a post on X. ) did not respond to our requests for comment or fact-checking.)

We’d never heard of a Cybertruck being leased before. Musk said he rented it through Turo, a company that allows people to rent cars much like Airbnb allows people to rent their homes. He also claims that “law enforcement currently believes (the explosion) was most likely intentional.”

News of the fire comes amid numerous reports that Musk has become close to President-elect Donald Trump. Musk reportedly spent New Year’s Eve at Mar-a-Lago and was present while President Trump had dinner with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Musk is also said to have been staying at a vacation home on Trump’s Florida property since Election Day. new york times.

Also during the terrorist attack in New Orleans, at least 15 people were killed when a driver drove a pickup truck into a crowd in the French Quarter. Las Vegas authorities cited the incident as a reason to carefully check for possible “assistive devices.” Like the Tesla Cybertruck, Musk reportedly leased the F-150 Lightning, which killed 15 people in New Orleans, through Turo.

Still, authorities say they want Las Vegas residents to “stay away from the area,” but Sheriff McMahill said the Vegas incident is probably over. “We believe everything is now safe.”

Several other people at X said they witnessed the “explosion” and captured smoke rising on video. Alcides Antunes, who took the largest image for this story, says there were three large explosions that may have caused the car to first catch fire and then the battery to explode. Max Radford claimed there were multiple explosions. Stephen Pelando claimed windows on the 53rd floor of the building shook violently.

“Ayackle,” who captured the lobby video, went viral, saying the vehicle “went down by itself” immediately after stopping in the lobby.

“It started like a spectacular fireworks display.” They wrote on

“My husband and I were literally standing where Jim was in the video. I just saw it pulled up, and it lowered itself like a bus and went away with a pop. “At first it looked like fireworks, but we thought it could soon turn into a bomb, so we ran away in fear for our lives,” he added.

Donald Trump has yet to make a public statement about the incident, but Eric Trump said: The safety and well-being of our guests and employees is our top priority. We sincerely thank the Las Vegas Fire Department and local law enforcement for their quick response and professionalism.”

Umar Shakir contributed reporting.

Update, January 1: We’ve added more details, including direct reports from law enforcement, video purportedly showing the moment of the explosion, and Musk’s statement about the rental car.

Edited January 1st: Jeff Bezos is the founder of Amazon, but as we originally wrote, he is no longer CEO.