Man connected to rental of exploding Tesla Cybertruck outside Las Vegas Trump Hotel is active-duty soldier, US officials say
Originally Published: 02 JAN 25 04:13 ET
Updated: 02 JAN 25 11:31 ET
By Hanna Park, Haley Britzky and John Miller, CNN
(CNN) — The man connected to the rental of the Tesla Cybertruck that exploded outside of a Trump Hotel in Las Vegas on Wednesday is a US Special Forces soldier assigned to the 10th Special Forces Group, according to four US officials.
The man, who has not been identified publicly, is a US Army special forces operations sergeant and holds the rank of master sergeant, which is a senior enlisted rank, the officials told CNN. He was on active duty but was on leave from Germany, where he had been serving with the 10th Group, at the time of the incident, three officials said.
The driver of the Cybertruck was killed and seven others nearby were injured on New Year’s Day when a combination of fireworks, gas tanks and camping fuel in the bed of the vehicle were detonated by a device controlled by the driver, police said.
The explosion could have been significantly worse if not for the vehicle’s body construction, which helped contain the blast, police said.
The FBI is investigating whether the explosion is tied to terrorism, and officials noted the implications of the Tesla vehicle and the hotel’s namesake.
“It’s a Tesla truck, and we know that Elon Musk is working with President-elect Trump, and it’s the Trump tower,” Kevin McMahill, sheriff of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, said Wednesday. “So, there’s obviously things to be concerned about there, and that’s something we continue to look at.”
The FBI in Denver, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the Colorado Springs Police Department are conducting “law enforcement activity” at a home in Colorado Springs related to the explosion, the FBI said.
The explosion bore some general similarities to the vehicle attack in New Orleans earlier Wednesday, as both involved a truck rented through the website Turo and a symbolic target on New Year’s Day.
Authorities are investigating possible links between the two attacks but repeatedly called the Vegas explosion an “isolated incident.”
Here’s what we know:
How the incident unfolded
The Cybertruck was rented in Colorado and arrived in Las Vegas at 7:30 a.m. Wednesday morning, McMahill said.
About an hour later, after driving up and down Las Vegas Boulevard, the truck arrived at the Trump Hotel and detonated, according to authorities.
Surveillance footage captured the driver passing the Trump Hotel about an hour before the explosion. The driver is then seen circling back and stopping in front of the hotel just moments before the car blast, according to a law enforcement official involved in the investigation.
A CCTV video shown by the police captured the moment the truck exploded. In related social media footage, the vehicle is engulfed in smoke while being doused with water.
During a news conference, police shared footage revealing scorched gasoline containers and firework mortars found among the wreckage of the heavily burned truck.
Police thank Elon Musk
McMahill said the Cybertruck’s body construction significantly reduced damage in the hotel valet area, as most of the blast was directed upward, leaving the building’s front glass unbroken during the explosion.
“The fact that this was a Cybertruck really limited the damage that occurred inside of the valet because it had most of the blast. Up through the truck and out,” he said. “You’ll see that the front glass doors at the Trump hotel were not even broken by that blast which they were parked directly in front of.”
“I have to thank Elon Musk specifically,” McMahill added, noting that Tesla Motors’ CEO gave authorities “quite a bit of additional information,” including directly sending them video from its charging stations to help with their efforts to track the driver.
”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,” Musk added, referring to the automaker’s system that collects and transmits data about a vehicle’s performance and status in real time and can monitor mileage and track the distance traveled, among other features.
Musk has emerged as a key player in Trump’s orbit during the transition to a second White House term. The president-elect has tapped the tech magnate, along with former Republican presidential contender Vivek Ramaswamy, to oversee a new Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, aimed at cutting government spending.
Vehicle was rented on Turo
The explosion closely followed a deadly attack in New Orleans, where a driver crashed a pickup truck into a crowd celebrating New Year’s on Bourbon Street early Wednesday morning, resulting in at least 15 deaths and multiple injuries. The driver had potential improvised explosive devices and an ISIS flag in the truck he drove, according to local and federal authorities.
Turo, which operates an online platform for car owners to lease their vehicles, reported that its service was used to rent vehicles involved in the tragic events in New Orleans and Las Vegas and it is cooperating with the authorities.
“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,” a Turo spokesperson told CNN.
McMahill noted that it is merely a “coincidence” that the truck involved in the New Orleans attack was also rented from Turo, and authorities are actively investigating the situation.
“We are absolutely investigating any connectivity to what happened in New Orleans as well as other attacks that have been occurring around the world,” McMahill said.
CNN’s Chelsea Bailey, Brynn Gingras, Lauren Mascarenhas and Paul P. Murphy contributed to this report.
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