Elon Musk stays on brand following Tesla Cybertruck explosion
As investigators worked to piece together clues into the New Year’s Day explosion of a Cybertruck outside of the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas, Tesla CEO Elon Musk stayed busy extolling the virtues of one of his company’s prized vehicles on social media.
Musk on social platform X — which he also owns — posted safety information about the Cybertruck, which law enforcement officials said exploded within 17 seconds after the suspect, Matthew Livelsberger, parked the vehicle in front of the hotel Wednesday. Investigators said that firework mortars and camping fuel were found in the back of the vehicle.
The Clark County, Nev., coroner said that Livelsberger, who was identified as an active service member, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound before the explosion.
“The evil knuckleheads picked the wrong vehicle for a terrorist attack,” Musk wrote on X, on which he has more than 210 million followers. “Cybertruck actually contained the explosion and directed the blast upwards. Not even the glass doors of the (hotel) lobby were broken.”
Seven people were injured in the explosion.
Police announced the explosion at 12:43 p.m. PST on New Year's Day, writing in a social media post that the department was investigating a vehicle fire at the entrance of the Trump Hotel.
In the hours after the explosion, Musk wrote that the whole senior Tesla team was investigating the explosion and said that the company would post information as it became available.
“We’ve never seen anything like this,” Musk wrote.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Tesla has pushed back against claims that because its vehicles include thousands of lithium-ion battery cells that are wired together in battery packs, they are more susceptible to elevated fire risks.
In 2020, Musk wrote that Tesla vehicles, like most electric vehicles, are more than 500 percent less likely to catch fire than combustion engine cars. He also noted at the time that more than a million combustion engine car fires take place each year, causing thousands of deaths, but he complained that a vehicle fire involving a Tesla car garnered more media attention.
A Tesla Cybertruck caught fire at the entrance of Trump Int'l Tower in Las Vegas on Jan. 1, 2025. (Credit: Alcides Antunes)
Two hours after his post saying that Tesla officials were investigating the Las Vegas blast, Musk wrote that the company had confirmed that the explosion was unrelated to the vehicle and that blame should instead be placed on explosives inside the Cybertruck.
At 7 p.m. local time on Wednesday, local law enforcement officials held a news conference in which they announced investigators had found fuel cans and fireworks mortars.
“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 said at the news conference.
He then thanked Musk for providing “quite a bit of additional information."
Throughout the day and into the following days, the billinionare and key ally of President-elect Trump continued to post and reshare information, praising the truck’s durability. As conspiracy theories picked up steam surrounding the explosion, Musk remained on-brand as did other people connected to the automaker.
As a way of debunking some social media claims, Musk posted online that the Cybertruck’s self-driving function won’t work if the driver is dead. He added that following the explosion, the truck's battery pack never caught fire and added that the vehicle's tires were still inflated.
"Once we get this Cybertruck back to Tesla, we'll buff out the scratches and get it back on the road," he wrote.
In an X post on Wednesday, Tesla investor Sawyer Merritt referred to the vehicle as “the toughest and most badass truck ever made.”