Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news, the Mitchropolitan Police Department
Speaker 1: of Vegas holding that press conference, FBI agent responsible for
Speaker 1: that division that area. The Vegas Sheriff also basically, of course,
Speaker 1: covering what happened when a Tesla cybertruck exploded outside the
Speaker 1: Trump Las Vegas Hotel. That was hours after a deadly
Speaker 1: attack in New Orleans, French Quarter on New Year's Eve
Speaker 1: that killed at least fifteen people, injured dozens. The cyber
Speaker 1: truck explosion, killing the driver and injuring seven others. But tim,
Speaker 1: now we know the driver, We're getting more information about
Speaker 1: what happened leading right up to that explosion.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the Las Vegas Police have identified a Matthew Leiveelsberger
Speaker 2: as the suspect, but they still need to get DNA
Speaker 2: to identify the suspect. The suspect did have a gunshot
Speaker 2: wound to the head before blast. The sheriff did note
Speaker 2: that he believed it was self inflicted, but has yet
Speaker 2: to be confirmed. Las Vegas Police Carol also not aware
Speaker 2: of any other subjects in this case.
Speaker 1: I think what's also key as these two two incidents
Speaker 1: happened so close to one another in terms of timing
Speaker 1: that connections. Not ready to rule in, not ready to
Speaker 1: rule out, is what we heard from that press conference.
Speaker 1: Comment made that very strange similarities with the case in
Speaker 1: New Orleans in terms of what happened in Vegas. The
Speaker 1: motivation unknown for the cyber truck blast at that Vegas
Speaker 1: Trump Vegas Hotel. That coming from the FBI, no ideology
Speaker 1: leading to either the President elect, nor to Elon Musk
Speaker 1: nor to Tesla, So there is still more to be known.
Speaker 2: You should know Tesla staff is planning to arrive this
Speaker 2: afternoon to assist with the probe. We just heard that
Speaker 2: from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. The FBI also
Speaker 2: saying that the blast is being investigated globally, but there's
Speaker 2: no current evidence connecting the subject to a terror group.
Speaker 1: But I still say, will say just one last point
Speaker 1: that confident. At least we're hearing from the Las Vegas
Speaker 1: Metropolitan Police Department that they are confident in the safety
Speaker 1: of their community. At this point, let's get to the
Speaker 1: broader security implications for the United States. Nick Wattams is
Speaker 1: back with US National Security Team leader at Bloomberg News.
Speaker 1: He joined from our DC Bureau. A lot going on.
Speaker 1: We continue to get some more elements to this story,
Speaker 1: more information, Nick, But what are you hearing from your
Speaker 1: sources or from the US security and intelligence areas and
Speaker 1: departments about where this goes, or what are the many
Speaker 1: big questions that maybe are still out there.
Speaker 3: Well, it looks like the biggest question now has essentially
Speaker 3: been answered, which to a lot of people's mind was
Speaker 3: what was the connection between these two incidents. Obviously during
Speaker 3: the press conference there you heard the sheriff say that
Speaker 3: there were certain similarities, but officials are now saying essentially
Speaker 3: that they see no direct connection between these two attacks.
Speaker 3: There had been some reporting that the two suspects there
Speaker 3: were both obviously US military veterans, may have overlapped briefly
Speaker 3: at a base in the United States during their time
Speaker 3: when they served. But for the moment, that looks like
Speaker 3: it was a little bit of a false trail and
Speaker 3: there was no though that was you know, a lot
Speaker 3: of people's immediate instinct. The other thing that really struck
Speaker 3: me from that press conference was them saying they are
Speaker 3: looking globally so trying to figure out what putting each
Speaker 3: of these attacks in their context. Obviously, there was the
Speaker 3: New Orleans attack, the suspect had an Islamic state flag
Speaker 3: in his car. Authorities said no such indication on the
Speaker 3: Las Vegas one, but it looks like authorities are not
Speaker 3: ruling out the possibility that, you know, these may have
Speaker 3: not been loan actors, that they might have had some
Speaker 3: support network.
Speaker 4: So that's still a big unknown that we're looking into.
Speaker 2: What surprised me or was What really struck me nick
Speaker 2: during this press conference, especially compared to the one we
Speaker 2: saw with the FBI and other law enforcement officials out
Speaker 2: of New Orleans earlier today, was that in New Orleans,
Speaker 2: officials were very quick to say this was terrorism. It's
Speaker 2: being treated as terrorism. We didn't hear that from this
Speaker 2: press conference this afternoon. How do you read into.
Speaker 3: That, well, a very orny and sensitive issue, how these
Speaker 3: attacks get labeled terrorism or not. I would suspect that
Speaker 3: the reason for the New Orleans attack being labeled that
Speaker 3: way was they found that Islamic state flag in there.
Speaker 3: There was a lot of conflicting information, of course, going
Speaker 3: around in the run up to that, whether the suspect
Speaker 3: was a migrant had come from abroad, when in fact
Speaker 3: we learned he was a US citizen, had served in
Speaker 3: the army for many years. But you know, when you
Speaker 3: see that flag, that Islamic State flag in the car,
Speaker 3: that's a pretty telling indication.
Speaker 4: Of course.
Speaker 3: The big question there again is was this suspect inspired
Speaker 3: by the Islamic State, essentially self radicalized, as has happened
Speaker 3: with some attacks in the past, or was this some
Speaker 3: bigger operation or part of some bigger operation by the group,
Speaker 3: which we do have indications has sort of come back
Speaker 3: after the punishing campaign by the US to essentially eliminate it,
Speaker 3: that there has been something of a resurgence. However, at
Speaker 3: this time, I mean again stressing there is still so
Speaker 3: much we don't know.
Speaker 4: About either of these attacks.
Speaker 3: I think in the case of the New Orleans when
Speaker 3: there is no immediate evidence that this was planned or
Speaker 3: orchestrated with the Islamic State, which still has a toe
Speaker 3: hold in Syria, and all indications suggests that the suspect
Speaker 3: there had essentially been self radicalized.
Speaker 4: But we're still trying to answer all those questions.
Speaker 1: No, absolutely, and Nick, you know, I feel like we
Speaker 1: do have a fairmount more answers as you are laying
Speaker 1: out and as we just heard in that press conference.
Speaker 1: But what's top of mind for you in terms of
Speaker 1: kind of the big question that still needs to be answered.
Speaker 3: Well, I think, you know, really there's the very interesting
Speaker 3: fact that both were military veterans. At a lot of
Speaker 3: issues are coming to light about the about the background
Speaker 3: of the New Orleans attacker and the strain he had
Speaker 3: potentially been under at home. We know a lot less
Speaker 3: about the attacker in Las Vegas, though, I did think
Speaker 3: it was also very interesting from the press conference there
Speaker 3: that they said, hey, you know, they believe the effectiveness
Speaker 3: of the bomb was not a sort of in keeping
Speaker 3: with the level of experience. They thought that the suspect
Speaker 3: there had, which I think is obviously an indication, as
Speaker 3: officials have said that he was a special operator in
Speaker 3: the US military. So but certainly the fact that both
Speaker 3: appear to be American citizens, both army veterans, one we
Speaker 3: know served in Afghanistan. We're still trying to get details
Speaker 3: of the Las Vegas attackers military record, but there are
Speaker 3: some similarities there that really begs some big questions, and
Speaker 3: we're going to be trying to figure that out over
Speaker 3: the next couple of days.
Speaker 1: Right that one response by one of the officials at
Speaker 1: that Vegas press conference media conference comment made that very
Speaker 1: strange similarities with the case in New Orleans what happened
Speaker 1: in Vegas. So still some more answers that, Well, we'll
Speaker 1: all be looking forward to it. Nick, really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Nick Wadhams, he's National Security team leader right here at
Speaker 1: Bloomberg News, joining us right there from our bureau in
Speaker 1: the nation's capital.
Speaker 2: From Washington, DC, now to Detroit. I want to bring
Speaker 2: in Bloomberg News Auto reporter Keith Notton for more on
Speaker 2: this and then some other Tesla news that we learned
Speaker 2: a little earlier today that Tesla's annual vehicle sales dropped
Speaker 2: for the first time in more than a decade, to
Speaker 2: spite a year and push that sent deliveries to a
Speaker 2: record in the fourth quarter. Tesla's shares selling off as
Speaker 2: a result. We're going to get to that in just
Speaker 2: a minute, Keith, but I do want to start with
Speaker 2: the news just moments ago that we learned from officials
Speaker 2: in Las Vegas that members of Tesla's staff are on
Speaker 2: their way to Las Vegas to assist law enforcement agents
Speaker 2: with finding information from this cyber truck that yesterday had
Speaker 2: an explosive device or explosive devices in it. I'm curious
Speaker 2: what types of information they can get from what happens
Speaker 2: inside of Tesla, what happens outside of teme Esla, because
Speaker 2: for people who aren't familiar with these vehicles, these have
Speaker 2: quite a few cameras recording at all times on the
Speaker 2: outside well for sure.
Speaker 5: So you know, modern vehicles, particularly Tesla's, are highly sophisticated.
Speaker 5: They have a lot of devices that record what goes
Speaker 5: on in the car, cameras being one of them. And
Speaker 5: so while they're not for the level of a black
Speaker 5: box on a jet or something like that, it can
Speaker 5: provide a lot of important information if you're doing an
Speaker 5: investigation like this. You know, we have two incidents yesterday,
Speaker 5: the one in Vegas with the Tesla cybertruck and then
Speaker 5: the attack in New Orleans on Bourbon Street, and that
Speaker 5: was with a Ford F one fifty lightning. I've been
Speaker 5: on the phone with Ford this morning, and they are
Speaker 5: also cooperating with authorities to provide them any information they
Speaker 5: can glean from that F one fifty lightning. So the
Speaker 5: way modern cars, particularly electric vehicles, so these are both
Speaker 5: electric vehicles, both rented from trurob anyway, and so they
Speaker 5: can provide all sorts of interesting and helpful data as
Speaker 5: this investigation goes on, I got to.
Speaker 1: Ask you, Keith. Okay, and again forgive us folks, because
Speaker 1: we're trying to be very careful here and really just
Speaker 1: talk about facts and stuff. But is it interesting that
Speaker 1: both were electric vehicles?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Well, I mean one way to look at that, And
Speaker 5: again I don't want to go too far into the
Speaker 5: speculation exactly, but electric vehicles, in the case of the
Speaker 5: New Orleans attack, they are powered by a battery that
Speaker 5: is very heavy that adds thousands of pounds of weight
Speaker 5: to the vehicle. So you know, if you're looking to
Speaker 5: maximize destructive properties, more weight will do that.
Speaker 2: Keith, what do you make of the Turo connection here?
Speaker 2: I think a lot of folks might be familiar with
Speaker 2: traditional places to runt a vehicle, but are now hearing
Speaker 2: about Turo for the first time.
Speaker 5: Right, And Turo, you know, it can be a little
Speaker 5: bit like automotive Airbnb. Sometimes it's individuals who are renting
Speaker 5: out their exotic cars. Turo has been known for exotics
Speaker 5: and for electric vehicles. We don't know, or I don't
Speaker 5: know the details of how these two were rented and
Speaker 5: where they come from. I know that in the case
Speaker 5: of Forward, from my conversations with them, they're trying to
Speaker 5: help with that, but it is it is a rental
Speaker 5: traditionally that has rented more exotic cars, different cars, electric vehicles,
Speaker 5: not your standard hurt zenatas.
Speaker 1: All right, kind of leave it on that note. Keith Nulton,
Speaker 1: thank you so much. Auto reporter at Bloomberg News joining
Speaker 1: us in Detroit.