LAS VEGAS (KLAS) -- The Cybertruck fire and explosion outside the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas on New Year's Day is the second high-profile incident at the hotel in recent years.
On Aug. 31, 2021, a 44-year-old Michigan man was charged after taking a suitcase to the hotel's concierge station and saying, "Everybody needs to leave the building. There is a bomb in here," according to Las Vegas police. He called hotel reservations 15 minutes later and said, "How are you doing? Bomb, 15 minutes to evacuate the building." Caller ID showed his name, police said.
D'Andre Lundy of Farmingville, Michigan, got out of a taxi that pulled up to the valet area at around 12:45 p.m. He was wearing an American flag hat, police said.
After Lundy was arrested at the Motel 6 on East Tropicana Avenue, he said he wanted to send the former president a message that "he is 'a beast,'" police reported.
Police said they found “miscellaneous items,” including “written documents” inside the bags left by Lundy. He later told police the bags contained a Bible, a rock, and a $1 bill.
On Thursday, the FBI acknowledged the attention to the hotel: President-elect Donald Trump, who will take office after a Jan. 20 inauguration ceremony, has stayed at the hotel while visiting Las Vegas.
"It's a bombing that certainly has factors that raise concern. It's not lost on us that it's in front of, you know, of the Trump building, that it's a Tesla vehicle, but we don't have information at this point that definitively tells us or suggests it was because of this particular ideology or that, you know, any of the reasoning behind it," Spencer Evans, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI's Las Vegas Division, told reporters at a news conference.
The use of a Tesla Cybertruck drew attention to Elon Musk's connections to Trump. Musk's electric car company includes a Gigafactory near Reno that builds batteries for electric cars. In Las Vegas, Musk is behind the Las Vegas Loop, a network of tunnels connecting to the Las Vegas Convention Center. The Boring Company, owned by Musk, has big plans to expand the system up and down the Strip, to downtown, Reid International Airport, Allegiant Stadium, and the Las Vegas Medical District.
Tesla electric cars are used to transport passengers through the tunnels.
"It's a Tesla truck and we know that Elon Musk is working with President-elect Trump and it's the Trump Tower, so there's obviously things to be concerned about there," Clark County Sheriff Kevin McMahill said Thursday.
Law enforcement officials said they do not know the motivation behind the Wednesday attack by 37-year-old U.S. Army veteran Matthew Livelsberger. He drove the rented truck from Colorado after renting it.
"That's the purpose of the investigation that we're conducting is to get to the bottom of exactly what happened, why and how," Evans said.
Musk posted on social media about six hours after the New Year's Day incident confirming reports of the explosion. He said it was caused by "very large fireworks and/or a bomb." He went on to say it was unrelated to the vehicle itself.
Video on Thursday from outside Trump Tower in the Midtown Manhattan area of New York City showed heightened security. The tower on Fifth Avenue is a mixed-use condominium building that reaches 58 stories. Barricades were in place at the New York building and also Chicago's Trump Tower, according to CBS reports.
On Sept. 9, a South Carolina man was arrested after making comments about blowing up Harry Reid International Airport and Trump's 2024 candidacy.
The explosion of the truck, packed with firework mortars and camp fuel canisters, came hours after 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar rammed a truck into a crowd in New Orleans’ famed French Quarter early on New Year’s Day, killing at least 15 people before being shot to death by police. That crash was being investigated as a terrorist attack. The FBI said Thursday that they believe Jabbar acted alone, reversing its position from a day earlier that he likely worked with others.
Chris Raia, FBI deputy assistant director, said Thursday that officials have found “no definitive link” between the New Orleans attack and the truck explosion in Las Vegas.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
