There is a Cybertruck parked outside of the Las Vegas hotel
A car that explodes in Las Vegas explodes: Tesla CEO Elon Musk confirms the explosion is caused by very large fireworks and/or a bomb
A car parked outside the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas exploded on Wednesday morning. A video shared on X shows the truck engulfed in flames just outside the hotel’s lobby, with the person who captured it saying the Cybertruck “blew up.”
The luggage is in the footage, and I and my husband were standing close to it. It went down like a bus, and I watched it pull up. It first looked like fireworks. I immediately feared for our life because I thought it could be a bomb.
We haven’t yet found a video of the vehicle catching fire, but several others on X say they witnessed an “explosion” and captured videos of the rising smoke. Max and Stephen were both claiming that the windows on the 53rd floor of the building shook violently.
Las Vegas Metropolitan Police and Clark County Fire Department officials told a news conference that a person died inside the futuristic-looking pickup truck and they were working to get the body out. Several people were taken to the hospital with minor injuries.
There were a number of items in the vehicle including firearms, fireworks, a military ID, an iPhone and credit cards. The FBI and other law enforcement officials are still looking for a reason.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk said Wednesday afternoon on X that “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.”
“The whole Tesla senior team is investigating this matter right now,” Musk said in an earlier post on the platform after attending a New Year’s Eve party at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort. “We have never seen something like this before.”
A person with knowledge of the matter said that law enforcement officials were still considering terrorism as a possible motive. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss details of the investigation.
“I know you have a lot of questions,” Jeremy Schwartz, acting special agent in charge for the FBI’s Las Vegas office, told reporters. “We don’t have any answers.”
An active duty soldier in New Orleans and the driver of a cybertuck that plowed into a crowd on New Year’s Day
President Joe Biden was briefed on the explosion. The truck explosion came hours after a driver rammed a truck into a crowd in New Orleans’ famed French Quarter early on New Year’s Day, killing at least 10 people before being shot to death by police.
“The first one where we saw the fire, the second one, I guess, was the battery or something like that, and the third was the big one that smoked the entire area and was the moment when everyone was told to evacuate and stay away,” Bruce said.
Authorities have identified the driver of the Cybertruck that exploded in front of the Trump hotel in Las Vegas as 37-year-old Master Sgt. Matthew Alan Livelsberger. Police don’t have the full confirmation because he wasburned beyond recognition in the blast. They’re awaiting DNA tests to confirm his identity.
Livelsberger had a gunshot wound to the head before the Cybertuck detonating, and investigators believe it was self inflicted.
Shamsud-Din Jabbar, the driver of the pickup truck who plowed into a crowd in New Orleans on New Year’s Day, killing at least 14 people and injuring dozens, acted alone and there is no other threat around the Bourbon Street area, the FBI said Thursday.
Livelsberger was in the active duty Army from January 2006 to March 2011. He joined the Army Reserve and the National Guard during the summer and autumn of 2012 and December 2012 respectively.
The New Orleans Truck Attack Revealed Using the FBI’s Counterterrorism Special Agent on the Charge of the Explosion that Killed Jeremy Schwartz
The FBI was working with law enforcement in Las Vegas to learn more about the explosion, according to Jeremy Schwartz, acting special agent in charge. The FBI was looking into the blast to determine whether it was an act of terrorism.
Christopher Raia, deputy assistant director with the agency’s counterterrorism division, told reporters during the press conference that no one else was involved in the attack.
Raia said that investigators are combing through five electronic devices and there is no evidence that he was aided in this attack by anyone.
The FBI said on Wednesday that it was likely that there were more than one person involved in the attack and they were looking for additional suspects who might have aided in the attack.
The death of a Army veteran from Houston in a gunfight with police is being considered to be an act of terrorism. A black flag with ties to ISIS was attached to the back of the pickup truck and while an exact motive is unclear, Raia said Jabbar was “100% inspired” by the terrorist group.
Bourbon Street was reopened to the public on Thursday after it was cleaned overnight. Fourteen yellow roses have been placed on the sidewalk near Canal Street as a makeshift memorial for each of those killed in the speeding rampage.
The Sugar Bowl said that the postponement will allow for additional security resources to be put in place in order to maintain standards of a major event in the Superdome.
When asked about security measures in the city ahead of the game, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry told reporters that officials “reinforced the area” and “deployed some additional types of assets.”
“I don’t like to give specifics because I don’t like to tell the enemy what we got,” he said. “I can tell you that we’re in better shape than we have ever been,” he said. He also said there is “an unprecedented amount of law enforcement resources that are being utilized” to finalize the investigation.
Source: FBI now says the suspect in the deadly New Orleans truck attack acted alone
The FBI has confirmed that Jabbar had been discharged from the Army and is now in the process of investigating the Las Vegas Cybertruck attack
There is currently no link between the Cybertruck blast in Las Vegas and the attacks in New Orleans, according to Raia.
The FBI says that Jabbar, who was a US citizen, was discharged from the Army. He also served as a Human Resource Specialist and Information Technology Specialist from March 2007 until January 2015 and then in the Army Reserve as an IT Specialist until July 2020, an Army spokesperson confirmed to NPR. In February 2009, Jabbar deployed to Afghanistan where he served for about 11 months. He left the service with the rank of staff sergeant.
The FBI completed the search of Jabbar’s home in Houston Thursday morning and said in a post on social media that there is “no threat to residents” in the area. The Texas Newsroom reported that a neighbor didn’t know the suspect by his name, but described him as quiet and normal.
Elon Musk has said that the explosion in a Tesla vehicle in Las Vegas was caused by large fireworks and a bomb carried in the bed of the vehicle itself. He added, “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.”