“LOTS OF QUESTIONS”
The Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas is part of the Trump Organization, the company of President-elect Donald Trump, who will return to the White House on Jan 20. Tesla CEO Elon Musk was a key backer of Trump in his 2024 presidential campaign and is also an adviser to the incoming president.
“Obviously a Cybertruck, the Trump hotel – there’s lots of questions that we have to answer,” Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Sheriff Kevin McMahill said at a news conference.
Police said the truck was rented in Colorado, arrived in Las Vegas at around 7.30am and drove through the city’s famed Strip, lined with hotels, casinos and entertainment venues, until it reached the hotel, where it stopped in the valet area.
“Detectives found gasoline canisters and large firework mortars in the bed of the truck,” a police statement said.
Schwartz, the FBI special agent in charge, said it was not yet clear whether the blast was an act of terrorism.
Musk said the blast was unrelated to the 2024 model-year Cybertruck itself.
“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,” Musk said in a post on X. “All vehicle telemetry was positive at the time of the explosion.”
Telemetry involves the automatic collection of data from remote sources, transmitting it back to a central source so it can later be analysed.
Both the Cybertruck and the vehicle used in the New Orleans attack had been rented through car-sharing service Turo, McMahill said.
A Turo spokesperson said the company did not believe either of the renters of the vehicles involved in the Las Vegas and New Orleans attacks had a criminal background that would have identified them as a security threat.
The Trump Hotel was evacuated after the incident and most of the visitors were moved to another hotel.
Source: CNA
