The incident occurred just hours after a man drove a truck into crowds of New Year's Day revellers in New Orleans, killing 15. The Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas is part of the Trump Organization, the company of President-elect Donald Trump, who will return to the White House on Jan 20. Tesla CEO Elon Musk was a key backer of Trump in his 2024 presidential campaign and is also an adviser to the incoming president. "Obviously a Cybertruck, the Trump hotel – there's lots of questions that we have to answer," Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Sheriff Kevin McMahill said at an afternoon press conference. FBI special agent in charge Jeremy Schwartz later told reporters that it was not yet clear whether the blast was an act of terrorism. "I know everybody's interested in that word, and trying to see if we can say, 'Hey, this is a terrorist attack.' That is our goal, and that's what we're trying to do," Schwartz said. He added that the FBI had identified the person driving the vehicle, which had been rented in Colorado, but was not yet ready to publicly identify the driver. Musk said the blast was unrelated to the Cybertruck itself. "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." Telemetry involves the automatic collection of data from remote sources, transmitting it back to a central source so it can later be analysed. A person was found dead inside the 2024 model-year Cybertruck and seven people sustained minor injuries from the explosion, McMahill said. He added that both the Cybertruck and the vehicle used in the New Orleans attack had been rented through the car-sharing service Turo. A Turo spokesperson said the company did not believe either of the renters of the vehicles involved in the Las Vegas and New Orleans attacks had a criminal background that would have identified them as a security threat. "We are actively partnering with law enforcement authorities as they investigate both incidents," the spokesperson added. Related: Driver in fatal New Orleans truck ramming may not have acted alone, had Islamic State flag