One dead, seven injured as Cybertruck explodes outside Trump’s hotel in Las Vegas

A Tesla Cybertruck exploded just outside of the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada on New Year’s Day, law enforcement authorities have just confirmed. One person is dead inside the Cybertruck, and seven minor injuries have been reported, according to Las Vegas Sheriff Kevin McMahill.

The FBI is also on the scene; authorities have evacuated the hotel and are looking for “secondary devices” just in case, but McMahill says “there does not appear to be any further threat to our community.”

At around 8:40AM PT, a 2024 Cybertruck rolled up to the hotel lobby, according to authorities. “We saw that smoke started showing from the vehicle and then a large explosion from the truck occurs,” McMahill tells reporters. Fire crews were on scene within four minutes, and the fire was put out within an hour.

Here is an alleged video of the moment of the explosion, seemingly captured via one of the hotel’s security cameras:

A single anonymous “official briefed on the probe” told ABC News that the Cybertruck contained a load of “fireworks-style mortars,” though it wasn’t clear to that official if the explosion was intentional. The video above does seem to show firework-like explosions, but we haven’t confirmed its source.

Another video shared on X shows the truck engulfed in flames just outside the hotel’s lobby. Multiple eyewitnesses reported hearing at least one explosion, and we’ve embedded more of their videos further down this story.

It’s still not clear what caused the fire. “Right now we just don’t have a lot of answers,” says FBI special agent Jeremy Schwartz, the acting agent in charge. Authorities didn’t have any details about the dead person inside the Cybertruck; we don’t even yet know if they were the driver. “We are investigating a number of leads and I’m not prepared to release any of that information to you just yet,” McMahill says.

“We’ve never seen anything like this,” Tesla CEO Elon Musk posted on X. Musk has promised to “post more information as soon as we learn anything.”

The news of the fire comes amid numerous reports about Musk getting closer to President-elect Donald Trump. Musk spent New Year’s Eve at Mar-a-Lago and reportedly sat in during Trump’s dinner with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Musk has also been staying at a cottage on Trump’s Florida property since around Election Day, according to a report from The New York Times.

It also comes amidst a terror attack in New Orleans, where a driver rammed a pickup truck into a crowd of people in the French Quarter, killing 10; authorities in Las Vegas cited the incident as one reason they’re carefully checking for possible “secondary devices.”

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

Several others on X say they witnessed an “explosion” and captured videos of the rising smoke. Alcides Antunes, whose image tops this story, says the car first caught fire, then there were three big pops that might have been batteries exploding. Max Radford claimed there were multiple explosions; Stephen Felando claimed the windows shook violently on the 53rd floor of the building.

“Ayackle,” who captured the lobby video, says the vehicle “lowered itself” shortly after pulling up to the lobby, then went boom.

“It started off like colourful fireworks,” they wrote on X.

“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,” they added.

Donald Trump has yet to make a public statement on the incident, but Eric Trump has weighed in: “Earlier today, a reported electric vehicle fire occurred in the porte cochère of Trump Las Vegas. The safety and well-being of our guests and staff remain our top priority. We extend our heartfelt gratitude to the Las Vegas Fire Department and local law enforcement for their swift response and professionalism.”

Update, January 1st: Added many more details, including direct from law enforcement, and an alleged video of the moment of the explosion.

Correction, January 1st: Jeff Bezos is Amazon’s founder, but no longer its CEO as we originally wrote.