The blaring New Year’s Day headlines would be panic-inducing for any CEO: Your signature product, in this case Tesla’s Cybertruck, caught fire and exploded outside Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas.
And for Tesla and Elon Musk, few topics are touchier than vehicle fires. The automaker has spent years assuring customers that its electric vehicles, which are loaded with thousands of highly volatile battery cells, are safe.
In the hours that followed, Musk used his social-media platform X to muscle his way into the investigation, shape its coverage and portray his newest product in a positive light.
Musk blasted out key facts about the explosion to his followers, often revealing crucial information before it had been confirmed by law-enforcement authorities. His voice carried added weight given he had spent the New Year’s evening alongside Donald Trump at the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida.
By day’s end Wednesday, Musk was framing the Cybertruck as the story’s hero: It was built so tough that it might have actually saved bystanders from the apparent attack.
“The evil knuckleheads picked the wrong vehicle for a terrorist attack. Cybertruck actually contained the explosion and directed the blast upwards,” the Tesla chief executive posted late Wednesday. “Not even the glass doors of the lobby were broken.”
Musk celebrated the New Year with his family and Trump at a swanky party at Mar-a-Lago. “I have a good feeling about 2025,” Musk posted at 1:31 a.m. Eastern Standard Time Wednesday along with a picture of himself and his son.
The nation awoke hours later to alarming news: A man in a Ford pickup had plowed into a crowd in New Orleans , killing at least 14 and injuring others in what authorities were calling a terrorist attack.
Just hours later, an explosion rocked Las Vegas.
“We are investigating a vehicle fire at the entrance to Trump Towers. The fire is out. Please avoid the area,” Las Vegas police posted at 12:43 p.m.
For much of the afternoon, all that was known was that one person was killed and seven injured after the 2024 Cybertruck pulled up to the front doors of the Trump International Hotel and exploded. Smoke had been seen coming out of the vehicle beforehand, but authorities weren’t saying what caused the fire.
Firsthand accounts of the explosion began popping up on X.
“Cybertruck blew up in front of Trump hotel in Las Vegas,” X user Kaaaassuu posted at 12:22 p.m. , roughly 40 minutes after local police say they received a report of the explosion at the hotel. “Those are our luggage by the door and that’s where we were when it happened.”
Photographs of the Cybertruck ablaze next to the “Trump” entrance sign circulated online as memes that alluded to a “dumpster fire.”
For years, Tesla has fought back against suggestions that its vehicles, which are powered by thousands of lithium-ion battery cells wired together in packs, present elevated fire risks.
Lithium-ion cells can be quite combustible, and Tesla’s early technology breakthroughs involved figuring out ways to mitigate that risk with engineering and software.
A fire in 2019 in China attracted global attention when a security camera captured video of a Model S sedan appearing to spontaneously combust. The company would later attribute the blaze to a cluster of cells, known as a module, and it updated software to address the issue.
“Over a million combustion engine (it’s right there in the name!) car fires per year & thousands of deaths, but one Tesla car fire with no injuries gets biggest headlines. Why the double standard? This is a real question,” Musk fumed at the time . “Reality is a Tesla, like most electric cars, is over 500% *less* likely to catch fire than combustion engine cars, which carry massive amounts of highly flammable fuel. Why is this never mentioned?”
Just as it was then, Tesla was eager Wednesday to figure out what happened in Las Vegas. Behind the scenes, the automaker was playing detective, gathering data from the vehicle and charging stations that helped authorities track the pickup traveling to Las Vegas from Colorado.
“The whole Tesla senior team is investigating this matter right now,” Musk posted at 3:51 p.m. “Will post more information as soon as we learn anything. We’ve never seen anything like this.”
The post came as media reports emerged that the truck had been filled with fireworks and authorities were treating it as a potential act of terror.
Less than two hours later, Musk returned to X with an update : “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,” he posted. “All vehicle telemetry was positive at the time of the explosion.
He then soon added : “Law enforcement currently believes it was most likely intentional.” Nineteen minutes later, he continued , “Appears likely to be an act of terrorism. Both this Cybertruck and the F-150 suicide bomb in New Orleans were rented from Turo. Perhaps they are linked in some way.”
It wouldn’t be until around 7 p.m. that Las Vegas police held a press conference to disclose that the truck’s bed was packed with fuel cans and fireworks mortars. undefined undefined “The fact that this was a Cybertruck really limited the damage that occurred inside the valet because it had most of the blast go up through the truck and out,” Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Sheriff Kevin McMahill told reporters.
Tesla’s efforts behind the scenes won it public praise from the police. “I have to thank Elon Musk, specifically, he gave us quite a bit of additional information,” McMahill said. undefined undefined The sheriff’s comments immediately began swirling around X, helped by Musk’s amplification to his more than 210 million followers.
“A bomb went off in the Cybertruck’s bed and the tires didn’t pop/deflate, the exterior of the truck is intact, the bed door is still attached & the 1.4mm-1.8mm steel exterior (2x thicker vs normal trucks) helped contain the blast,” Sawyer Merritt, a Tesla investor, wrote . “It’s the toughest & most badass truck ever made!”
Musk quickly shared the post.
“Imagine trying to intimidate Trump and @elonmusk with a carbomb but you end up just killing yourself and running a @cybertruck ad campaign,” Chloe Cole posted along with a video of the burned-out Tesla vehicle.
To which Musk replied of the vehicle’s charred remains : “I’m pretty sure we could get it running again too.”
Write to Tim Higgins at tim.higgins@wsj.com
