Authorities investigating the explosion of a Tesla Cybertruck outside the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas have expanded their search for evidence to Colorado, as they continue to probe whether the incident was an act of terrorism.
Agents with the FBI, the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and local police were conducting “law enforcement activity” Thursday morning at an address in a residential neighborhood of Colorado Springs believed to be of interest to the Las Vegas investigation, said Vikki Migoya, a spokeswoman for the FBI’s Denver field office.
“FBI Denver personnel and specialized teams will be on-site for several hours,” she said in an email. She did not specify what drew investigators to that location or say whether agents had conducted any other searches related to the case.
Authorities continued to work Thursday to uncover more about the driver of the Cybertruck, who was killed in the explosion Wednesday that left seven others with minor injuries. The FBI said that agents have found “no definitive link” between the incident in Las Vegas and the deadly ramming attack in New Orleans that occurred hours earlier.
In the New Orleans rampage, authorities said, a man identified as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, 42, an Army veteran originally from Texas, intentionally drove a rented pickup truck into a crowd of New Year’s revelers on Bourbon Street, killing at least 15 people and injuring dozens of others.
Jabbar had rented the truck hours earlier on Turo, the same car rental app that officials have said was used to rent the 2024 Cybertruck involved in the Las Vegas explosion.
At a news conference following the explosion, Las Vegas Sheriff Kevin McMahill said the Cybertruck was rented in Colorado and arrived in Las Vegas at about 7:30 a.m. Wednesday, before detonating outside the Trump Tower’s glass entrance about an hour later.
McMahill said authorities have identified the person who rented the Cybertruck but are not yet releasing a name while they work to confirm that the individual was the same person who was behind the wheel when it blew up. The driver’s body was badly burned in the explosion, complicating efforts to make that identification, an official familiar with the investigation said Thursday.
In Colorado Springs, a half-dozen investigators from the local police department and the FBI clustered in a tight circle outside a three-story apartment complex Thursday. Yellow police tape blocked off the entrance to one of the building’s parking lots. Officers carried several small boxes out of one of the units and loaded them into a truck.
A Colorado Springs police officer declined to comment on their findings. The complex is home to dozens of units on the northeastern side of Colorado’s second-largest city.
Video footage of the explosion shared by authorities showed the Cybertruck, filled with large firework mortars and gas canisters, detonating in a massive conflagration with what appeared to be flashes from other explosives.
The FBI is investigating the incident through its Joint Terrorism Task Force.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been directly assisting the investigation, McMahill said, sharing “quite a bit of additional information” and video footage from Tesla charging stations across the country that helped authorities trace the vehicle’s path from Colorado to Las Vegas.
Musk has developed a highly public relationship with Donald Trump, spending more than $270 million last year backing the election of the former president and other Republican candidates. Trump tapped Musk in November to lead a commission on government efficiency.
In a post Wednesday on his social media platform X, Musk said that the “whole Tesla senior team is investigating this matter right now.”
Elsewhere in Las Vegas, one of the country’s leading hosts of large events, officials were stepping up security after the two New Year’s Day attacks.
Organizers of the Consumer Electronics Show, the technology conference popularly known as CES, said they were taking extra precautions for the four-day event next week at the city’s convention center, which is expected to draw nearly 140,000 attendees.
“In response to recent tragic events, we have increased our already robust security protocols,” said John T. Kelley, the conference’s director. “We continue to monitor the situation and are in touch with our security partners and law enforcement officials.”
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