Tragedy struck on the dawn of the new year when a Tesla Cybertruck exploded outside Trump International Hotel Las Vegas on Wednesday morning. The blast left one dead and injured seven according to an initial briefing from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. In a live video with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (LVMPD), FBI agent Jeremy Schwartz noted the agency is working to determine “whether this was an act of terrorism or not.”
“At 8:40 a.m. Las Vegas time, we received a report of an explosion and a fire at the Trump Towers,” said Sheriff Kevin McMahill. “We were told that a 2024 Cybertruck pulled up to the front of the hotel… we saw that smoke start showing from the vehicle, and then a large explosion from the truck occurred.” McMahill confirmed the sole fatality was an individual inside the vehicle, whose identity remains unconfirmed at this time. The seven others harmed in the incident suffered minor injuries according to police.
“We’re very well aware of what happened in New Orleans,” noted McMahill, regarding the vehicle attack in Louisiana which claimed at least 15 lives earlier on Wednesday morning. “With an explosion here, on our iconic Las Vegas Boulevard, we are taking all of the precautions that we need to take to keep our community safe.”
While police are actively hunting for secondary explosive devices out of an abundance of caution, it’s believed the threat has passed. “There does not appear to be any further threat to our community here now,” says McMahill. The FBI is also on site to investigate the circumstances of the matter. “Obviously, a Cybertruck, the Trump hotel, there’s lots of questions that we have to answer,” said McMahill.
Elon Musk Chimes In
Tesla CEO Elon Musk took to Twitter to comment on the matter in the hours following the blast. “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,” said Musk. “All vehicle telemetry was positive at the time of the explosion.
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. https://t.co/HRjb87YbaJ
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 1, 2025
Video of the explosion has been shared widely on social media, and appears to support this assumption. The footage can be seen here but viewer discretion is advised (We at The Autopian do not embed photos/videos of incidents involving fatalities, so follow that link at your own discretion). In the security footage, a rapid fiery explosion can be seen emanating from the rear of the Cybertruck, followed by a number of secondary explosions with colored flashes that appear to be fireworks. It seems unlike the more steady and progressive burn seen in a traditional electric vehicle fire.
Footage taken by the LVMPD after the fire shows the bed full of multiple cans of fuel and other explosive material. “Those are gasoline canisters, they are camp fuel canisters, and large firework mortars,” McMahill told the press. “It looks like the exterior of the truck is intact as it sits there… the fact that this was a Cybertruck really limited the damage that occurred.”
The fuel can you see in LVMPD’s video (screengrab above) is race fuel, which is typically used in things like drag racers. Here’s the can in question:
Viewer discretion of the following press conference is advised, as it features footage of the explosion and the deceased individual involved, whom authorities say remains in the vehicle. The video also shows what was found in the bed of the truck.
Turo Has Now Been Mentioned In Two Separate Possible Terrorist Incidents
ABC notes that “Authorities are investigating a Tesla Cybertruck explosion on Wednesday outside the Trump Las Vegas hotel in Nevada as a possible act of terror, law enforcement officials said.” Law enforcement have also advised that the vehicle was rented via the Turo app. As per ABC, this parallels the Ford F-150 Lightning used in the vehicular attack in New Orleans the same morning. “Multiple law enforcement sources told ABC News that the Cybertruck that exploded in Las Vegas was rented on Turo—the same app sources said was used to rent the pickup truck used in the deadly attack in New Orleans,” stated the outlet. LMVPD has since reported that the truck was rented in Colorado, and authorities traced its route to Las Vegas by its use of Tesla’s charger network.
The Autopian reached out to Turo regarding the incidents in Las Vegas and New Orleans. A Turo spokesperson provided the following statement:
We are heartbroken by the violence perpetrated in New Orleans and Las Vegas, and our prayers are with the victims and families. We are actively partnering with law enforcement authorities as they investigate both incidents. We do not believe that either renter involved in the Las Vegas and New Orleans attacks had a criminal background that would have identified them as a security threat. We remain committed to maintaining the highest standards in risk management, thanks to our world-class trust and safety technologies and teams that include experienced former law enforcement professionals.
At this stage, many details around the incident remain unclear, including the identity of those involved. Authorities have asked people to avoid the area while investigations are ongoing.
“We remain shocked and saddened by yesterday’s horrific events, and our hearts are with the victims and their families. We are outraged by the misuse of our marketplace by the two individuals who perpetrated these acts.
Every Turo renter is screened through a proprietary multi-layer, data-science-based trust and safety process. We utilize over 50 internal and external data sources to build, maintain, and improve on our best-in-class Turo Risk Score.
These individuals in question had valid driver’s licenses, clean background checks, one was honorably discharged from the US military, and the other was an active-duty Army green beret. They could have boarded any plane, checked into a hotel, or rented a car or truck from a traditional vehicle rental chain. We do not believe these two individuals would have been flagged by anyone – including Big Rental or law enforcement.
Turo operates a safe and trusted marketplace. As of September 30, 2024, we have collected data from over 90 million booked days, 27 million trips, 8.6 billion miles driven, through 12 years of operating history, less than 0.10% of Turo trips end with a serious incident such as a vehicle theft.” – a Turo spokesperson
Image credits: via Twitter screenshot, LMVPD
Are they sure it wasn’t a comical fart feature that missed an OTA update?
Listen folks, I hate Trump and Musk as much as any of you, but hurting yourself and/or other innocent people is not the way to deal with it. My personal goal for the next four years is to make sure that however much harm Trump does to me and the people I care about, I won’t do anything to amplify that harm. No drowning my sorrows in recreational drugs of any sort, no neglecting my health (exercise is good stress relief anyway), and certainly no direct self-harm.
I guess you could call that a New Year’s Resolution, except I started back in November.
Live well. It is the best revenge.
seems like a foreshadowing of the political shitshow that is to come this year with elon and trump
Maybe this is just because I live in the southwest US, but I can totally see this being some dude who rented a cybertruck to haul out fireworks to the desert to light them up. If all the fireworks and accelerants were piled on top of each other and forced together by normal driving/braking forces, its very reasonable to think that something in the middle started getting too hot and ignited.
It’s very common for people to think that you can transport fireworks in a half-assed way and be fine because of their packaging or whatever, plenty of yearly accidents where this kinda thing happens in a less-newsworthy way.
The Trump/Cybertruck hangup isn’t even that weird. If someone is online enough to specifically search out and stay at a Trump hotel, they probably just started reading up on the Cybertruck with Elon’s recent Trump affiliation and picked that truck as their rental choice for the same reason they stayed at a Trump hotel.
Where does the racing fuel and gas cans (in the bed of an electric truck, no less) fit in that theory? Or the fact that the explosion happened pretty much immediately upon him stopping in front of the hotel? This was pretty obviously a deliberate attack.
Well it doesn’t matter now since its a confirmed attack, but:
You thought someone was going to buy racing fuel at $20 per gallon to make a big fire in the desert? That would be like using $20 bills as kindling for a campfire.
An attack on what? If it was planned it was pretty poorly executed. Race fuel isn’t going to do much to a building unless the fire spreads crazy but it was at a hotel which has fire suppression systems. Honestly it was so dumb that it is hard to see it as deliberate.
I don’t think this detail is in this article, but the driver shot himself in the head before the fire started.
You don’t do that before desert shenanigans?
So unless he thought the building would collapse the most likely explanation is a fireworks oopsy? Come on.
Welcome to Same Old Shit 2025, everyone!
I’m 99.9% sure this was just some guy offing himself and making a statement at the same time, but holy shit has that truck broken everyone’s brains.
My takeaway. Tesla is always watching you. Always.
Also learned It takes less than 1 day for them to confirm it is not their fault. So, any time it takes more time than that I shall assume they are somewhat at fault. Or at best hiding something.
I know this is the least important part of this story, but holy shit Musk is so insufferable.
“All vehicle telemetry was positive at the time of the explosion.”
It’s a pickup truck dude, not a goddamn Saturn V.
It’s quite important actually, as it means that the cyberchunkofstainlesssteel rats out lots of information to Mommy Elon, all the time.
We really need to kill that trend of vehicles that are connected all the time and go back to good old disconnected ones… Because at some point a Chinese, Iranian or Russian backed hacking group is going to be able to brick all the cars/trucks/busses/whatever around the world in a matter of minutes.
I suspect all they need to really cripple the US is an attack on banks. Shut down people’s checks for a month or so, but still have the guns and cars? Even the level-headed ones will start going warlord if only to prevent being murdered themselves.
How will we be taxed by the mile and geofenced then? That’s where this is heading.
It’s also the most callous response ever. No condolences, no concern for those injured, just a big sign saying not my fault!
I believe he also bragged about the CT being a poor choice for this because its construction allowed it to contain the blast better than other vehicles.
Which actually makes it the worst (best if you’re the bomber?) choice if this had actually a serious attempt at a bombing – having a rigid container to shatter when it can’t contain the blast is exactly how a lot of explosives work. We just got lucky that if this was a terrorist attack (sure looks to be but I don’t wanna proclaim for sure) that the guy was an idiot and didn’t know how to make a bomb.
The only person killed was the bomber. Meanwhile, the press immediately started running headlines suggested the truck might have spontaneously exploded. If it was anyone other than Musk you would 100% understand why he needed to get this information out.
Im glad 2025 is so far looking to be a quiet year news-wise.
I’m a little grossed out by the advertisement of the Cybertruck by the police.
“Those are gasoline canisters, they are camp fuel canisters, and large firework mortars,” McMahill told the press. “It looks like the exterior of the truck is intact as it sits there… the fact that this was a Cybertruck really limited the damage that occurred.”
Trying to get into President Musks good graces.
Isn’t their couple name supposed to be “Trusk”?
I thought it was “Mump.”
agreed… like how tf did he conclude that. utter MAGA rubbish
I don’t think “this vehicle will contain most of the explosion inside, where you sit” is a selling point, TBH.
It is, for the very niche demographic of people who want to blow themselves up in their vehicle with minimal inconvenience to the outside world.
Interesting way to get rid of a body.
Jeez Autopian staff, they haven’t even announced the names of the victims, let alone buried them.
Maybe give it a few days next time…
From the article it seems no victims died in Las Vegas.
The person in the truck passed away, which is why we were especially careful not to show imagery of the exploded vehicle.
As for “give it a few days,” this story is breaking news involving a Cybertruck, Turo, Musk, and similarities to another violent incident involving a rented EV pickup. It’s newsworthy, so we covered it quickly, accurately, and thoughtfully.
Maybe I worded that wrong. What I was/am saying is to wait for at least SOME of the facts to surface if you are doing a “breaking news” piece. It appears that after the LV police press conference, the only similarities are that they both were EVs from Turo. And, even now, there are questions on when the LV guy was shot in the head.
It was a stretch to say they are connected 12 hours after the fact. That’s what I meant. Sheesh.
Love ya DT 😉
Not sure I understand your point, you don’t think news should be relayed until victims are buried?
He hasn’t figured out how to fit this one into the RWNJ universe yet, so just like school shootings, we’re not supposed to discuss it.
(The answer everybody overlooks in cases like this is that the perpetrator was a goddamn lunatic with no coherent goals)
Do you not understand how news works?
You have a point, true journalism is waiting a a few days, sometimes even weeks to write a story. You have to let society heal before they even hear about any sort of event.
The CT fire did not have victims, only a perp it seems. Filled with volatile explosive and fuel. Not sure what you’re going on about…
I count those injured as victims
Fair enough. I meant fatalities. DIfferent from the New Orleans attack.
Well, considering the driver of the LV incident was a perpetrator – not a victim….
The only one to bury is the perpetrator, he’s the only one that died. Seven people were injured, but local news stations in Las Vegas seem to be saying none of them had severe or life threatening injuries, and it sounds like they might no longer be in hospital at this point
If you wait a few days its no longer news…..Its olds.
Especially moved by the concern shown by the Turd VP (in waiting) regarding those injured…
Psychopath….Screw that idiot. YMMV of course.
Looking forward to a real shit show of a year here considering the first day.
Why do these idiots think that racing fuel would make a bigger bang or fire than the cheap stuff. Well nitromethane might, but 110 octane racing gasoline not so much.
I would have traded him the 110 for a couple of cans of regular high test.
Is it also possible those were empties and the perp filled them with regular gasoline for this mission? Maybe those were just easy for him to acquire, who knows.
MAGA doesn’t do science.
We’re fortunate he was so stupid that he only blew himself up along with light damage to two monuments to gluttony and greed.
Same reason I’ve heard people talk about “getting the good stuff” for their car that only requires regular octane. They’ll believe anything they hear when it comes out of the right persons mouth.
Fertilizer bombs use racing fuel (see OKC Bombing). If you can’t get the fertilizer, you may believe you can get by with just the fuel.
OKC guy was using nitromethane to speed up oxidation. Which is redundant with diesel and nitrogen fertilizer, which is what professionals that make things go boom use. No extra oxidizer needed.
You want more carbon and less hydrogen in the fuel part.
This may be an overreaction, but, just in case, I think we should preemptively destroy all Cybertrucks.
Bulldoze every cryptominer operation while we’re at it, just to be sure.
I’m not buying a terrorist attack on this one. I don’t want to say “because it’s too dumb” but, uh, it’s very dumb. If you’re going to be a terrorist, why are you just buy some standard commercial fireworks?
Sometimes when something’s stupid enough you’ve just got to assume stupidity.
If it was a Tesla exploding in front of any other Las Vegas hotel but the Trump one, or another brand of car exploding in front of the Trump hotel, I’d be inclined to admit that possibility, but the two combined incline me to assume some sort of political or ideological statement was intended.
I disagree. The demographic that drive the Cybertruck (idiots who like Elon Musk) and the demographic that stays at a Trump hotel in 2025 (idiots who like Trump) have a ton of overlap right now.
Everything there screams “idiot” but it doesn’t say “idiot with an agenda.”
Or it could be someone who freely generalizes/stereotypes half the country as “idiots”, based solely on their own biases, that had an agenda. That’s certainly a possibility, too.
Okay, if you’re driving a $100k truck with known severe reliability issues and voting for a known felon you’re an idiot.
I’m sorry, doing idiotic things makes you an idiot. Those are two outright idiotic acts.
You don’t know who this guy voted for (although, it would be somewhat logical to assume not the candidate who’s building he just attacked) and the truck was a rental
That would be more logical, were it not fot the fact that Trump has had his own supporters attempt to take him out at least twice during the campaign, and also the ongoing dispute between the Trump and Musk fanbases within the Magaverse – and Trump’s apparent siding with Musk. This does feel somewhat like a Trump guy deciding to go with a bang, making a statement against Musk for Trump to see.
^This
Yo, it’s not half the country, it’s 49% of voters. That’s only slightly over 1/4 of the population being generalizable idiots.
If your comments were any more bad faith, you’d be trying to elect a new pope.
I’m not going to waste energy arguing with you on this, but this really does not have the appearance of an accident
A few years ago in my town a dude blew up his pickup truck full of fireworks in front of his ex-wife’s house. Fortunately we have good ambulance coverage and a doctor responded right away to the scene, so the idiot was saved to live a life of regret without hands. Nobody else was hurt.
What I’m saying is, even if it wasn’t an accident, it is far more likely about this one dude’s mental state than about anything that makes sense to you or me.
Obviously he wasn’t in a right mental state, but it is more likely than not that some sort of political rationale factored into the choice of rental vehicle and target, he didn’t blow up a Ford in front of a Hilton. Same with a guy blowing up a bomb in front of his ex wife’s house, obviously he didn’t just pick a house at random, there was intent in target selection, he was going after her
Yeah, there was some kind of thought process, I’m just saying it doesn’t necessarily connect logically to anything else. Like the guy who shot Gabby Giffords because he was mad about grammar.
I just read today that DJTJ’s daughter Kai drives a CT.
https://www.nickiswift.com/1746738/don-jr-daughter-kai-trump-vehicle-cybertruck-causing-stir/
Sadly no cocaine powered vehicles are avaliable. Wait till Trump makes owning people possible again palanquin can thus be “supercharged” w cocaine.
TIL Junior has a kid old enough to drive.
I know it’s hard to process this fact, but junior just turned 47. He does a mean 13 year old, but he’s an actual adult.
So it’s perfectly normal to have a pile of fireworks and various fuels in the bed of a truck and park at the door of hotels?
My life must be boring as shit then.
I’m not expert on bombs, but fireworks and the various fuels found aren’t particularly effective bombs.
They are, however, things someone would take somewhere to be annoying to everyone else around New Years.
While it’s possible I’m wrong, there isn’t anything here that doesn’t say “regular dip shit,” and people are trying to say terrorism because it’s somehow comforting to think that people are planning nefarious deeds instead of dumb shit happening to dumb people in dumb ways.
The LVPD also put out a statement saying they couldn’t find an ignitor.
“While it’s possible I’m wrong…”. Not possible. Definite. You seem to be ignoring all of the evidence. Occam’s Razor…
The simplest answer is not always the correct answer.
Anyway the simplest answer is that the guy was an idiot that was hauling a bunch of fireworks and gasoline around in the back of a CT and stupid stuff happened.
Tha slightly less simple answer is that some idiot that was hauling a bunch of fireworks and gasoline around in the back of a CT and intending to somehow make it into a bomb but it went off before a bomb could be made.
A much less simple answer is that there was some sort of of plot or conspiracy involved, and Mr stupid screwed up.
Or maybe it was a smart person trying to cover their tracks by pretending to be an idiot.
I think Occam’s Razor may be the wrong tool for the task here.
I stand by Mr Occam. And the news that he shot himself in the head has borne this out.
Oh you are probably right, I just don’t think that you are applying Occam’s razor correctly .
What’s simple about an active service member forgetting everything he knows about explosives?
Exactly. I assume that you were responding to Hugh…
Occam’s razor is that the simplest explanation is usually the best one. But you and I may be splitting hairs here. We both agree that the guy was an idiot and somewhat incompetent at that.
Yeah. Luckily,it not illegal to be stupid yet,although maybe it should be.
It seems like some sort of silly protest that went a bit sideways at least. I don’t think terrorism would be the correct term for this,maybe something like «stupid asshole screws up protest» may be more suited.
Wrong. It was a truck rented via Turo and driven there. The driver stayed in a nearby Airbnb and they found evidence of the explosives/bombs/whatever there.
Stop backwards from an erroneous assumption. If we start from assuming nothing, we have a guy who is at a Trump hotel driving a famously unreliable statement vehicle. He’s got the back filled with camping supplies and fireworks on New Year’s Day.
Now, why would people have a bunch of fireworks and camping supplies on New Year’s Day? Don’t work backwards from “attack” and you might think “they want to go to a campground, do a bit of barbecue, and set off fireworks.” This is a normal (if obnoxious) thing to do.
Why is he at a Trump Hotel? Work forwards, not backwards. If you’re going to Vegas for a New Year’s celebration, you’re going to need to stay at a hotel. Well, you like Trump, you might stay at his hotel. Simple explanation.
Why would he rent a Cybertruck? Work forwards, not backwards. People who go on vacation often rent cars, and if someone who likes the Cybertruck wants to go on a Vegas vacation, they would probably see if they could rent one.
Go from that direction, and “man on vacation wants to set off fireworks on New Year’s in Vegas” is a normal path of events. “Man intending to do a terrorist attack somehow forgets everything he knows about explosives and somehow doing the least efficient attack possible” is absurd.
I think that you must have missed some critical information. He was staying at an AIrbnb and there was evidence of explosives/fireworks left behind. And since this article was written, it’s been reported that he shot himself in the head upon pulling up to the hotel.
I think that there is some pretzel logic in your response.
While I would agree with this sentiment, the fact that the truck was rented from Turo would lead me towards the train of thought that says this was a statement. Someone took Elons ego stroking shiny triangle, and blew it up in front of Trumps ego stroking shiny rectangle. I’m sure the owner of that Cybertruck wouldn’t agree with the message being sent, but I’d wager that this truck was rented on purpose over any other vehicle to send a message.
This was absolutely a political statement of sorts. Thinking terribly here, if the intent was to hurt a bunch of people, there are tons of more effective places to do that in Las Vegas than Trump’s hotel. It’s far north and kind of off the Strip, it’s not like there’s a ton of activity there.
It’s also a non-casino hotel, so there aren’t going to be loads of people hanging around inside on the ground floor, just people checking in and out or coming and going from their rooms
I didn’t know there was such a thing as a non-casino hotel in Las Vegas, or any business there without gambling. Seems like a weird business decision.
There are quite a few, but they’re mostly split at both the very high and very low ends of the market, not many in the middle
There were some discussions on and off about adding one to the Trump International as a phase 2 project, but they ended up not pursuing it. I think a second tower with condos was also proposed at one point
Indeed, a hotel in Vegas without a casino does seem like a rather poor business model, but the dude has hilariously gone bankrupt with casinos before so…
Could he even get a casino license nowadays? Convicted, felon, and all that.
To be fair, literally every casino in Atlanric City has gone bankrupt, except maybe the Borgata. Most of Trump’s properties there were bought due to the previous owners running into financial distress on them, the only one he was involved with right from the start was the Trump Plaza, and even that was originally a joint venture with Harrah’s
AC just never panned out as the big, east coast mecca of gambling and entertainment that was predicted in the ’70s, the city outside the casino walls stayed depressed and blighted, and the casinos themselves were oversized and oversaturated, especially once surrounding states started legalizing gambling
Exactly this, now that news is coming out with a more full story, it was an active duty late 30’s army ranger on leave, who’s wife had not heard from him in several days. This is absolutely not an accident.
It was a rental. Probably chosen for the purpose of making a statement.
Wow, such an inflammatory statement. Sheesh!
the fact that its rented makes this seem like more of a possibility. A very easy way to make all this line up without a deliberate attack in mind is that some far right dude who is online enough to specifically want the image of staying at a trump hotel, wanted to have some firework/explody fun out in the desert and rented a cybertruck for a day for the same reason he would stay at a trump hotel.
Obviously this doesn’t deserve the death penalty and if this is truly the case I feel for the guy, sure it was stupid to load up a truck with accelerants but there are a lot of signs pointing to “I want to drive out to the Nevada desert to use a shit-ton of fireworks.”
At a press conference on Thursday afternoon, Las Vegas Sheriff Kevin McMahill said the coroner’s office found that Livelsberger “had sustained a gunshot wound to the head prior to the detonation of the vehicle.” And while the investigation is still ongoing, he believed Livelsberger’s actions indicated “a suicide with a bombing that occurred immediately thereafter,”
Cybertruck blast suspect was a ‘Rambo type’ who loved Trump, family says
Fireworks are to genuine terrorist bombs what the Cybertruck is to real pickups.
Yes, sadly suspect pure dumbasserry here.
Wow, I’m actually shocked that both of these terrible incidences happened and on New Year’s Day, what a way to start the year
RIP to the victims and get well wishes to all the injured (New Orleans incident)
also get well to the injured in the LV incident (didn’t mean to separate events)
If you weren’t already scared of depreciation making your Cybertruck on Turo’s value going down, how about a terrorist?
Better hope they took the insurance!
Pretty sure blowing yourself up voids any insurance policy.
The owner of the vehicle gets an insurance policy through Turo with the deductible based on how much of the rental fee Turo is taking
The auto player is following me around with a video titled “Moving Adventures with the Tesla Cybertruck,” looks like it can haul furniture (and home made explosives.)
Welcome to 2025, it’s going to be a GREAT year.
You could tell by mid-November, didn’t have to wait til Jan 1st.
Sadly, that is a correct statement.
So when something catches fire inside the bed of a CT – the door latches disable, trapping you inside?
Sounds like a … great safety feature?
Wile E Coyote comes to mind watching this.
Please file your Racing Fuel in an EV jokes hereunder:
Fucking moron. The only thing he did right was total a CT (that’s a joke – albeit a bad one, for the humor impaired).
This doesn’t seem to me to be so much of a terrorist attack as a very poorly thought out and executed protest.
Some CT owner who rents his vehicle out on Turo is likely to be very upset… or very relieved, since he’ll get a check from his insurance company to cover the loss and get him out from under that pile of SS.
Maybe, maybe not. I dunno if auto policies automatically cover property in acts of terrorism or suicide.
Should be an interesting report to read though.
On top of which, how many cars on Turo have commercial policies that cover damage by random drivers when the car’s used as a rental?