Updated March 27, 2025 – 11:32 am
A man police said set multiple Tesla vehicles on fire using Molotov cocktails has been arrested, according to court and jail records.
Paul Hyon Kim, 36, was booked into the Clark County Detention Center on Wednesday on a total of 15 counts, including suspicion of arson, destroying or injure real or personal property of another, value $5,000 or greater, possessing/disposing of a fire device, all felonies, and misdemeanor discharging a firearm into a vehicle.
Kim will be taken into federal custody later Thursday, Spencer Evans, the special agent in charge at the FBI officer in Las Vegas, announced.
Video footage provided by the Metropolitan Police Department showed that around 2:45 a.m. March 18, a person dressed in black damaged at least five Teslas in the parking lot of a Tesla service center at 6260 Badura Ave., near Jones Boulevard and the 215 Beltway.
According to police, the person responsible for the attack used multiple incendiary devices to set the Teslas on fire, and one of the devices was found unexploded in a car.
Hallmarks of terrorism
During a news conference at Metro headquarters later that morning, authorities said the damage at the Tesla service center — including cars set ablaze and the word “resist” graffitied on the front doors — had “some of the hallmarks” of terrorism.
“This was a targeted attack against a Tesla facility,” Assistant Sheriff Dori Koren said at the conference. “We do believe that it is isolated at this time.”
Still, he said, Metro was increasing its presence at Tesla-related locations in the valley as a precaution.
The Clark County Fire Department and the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force joined the investigation. According to FBI Special Agent in Charge Spencer Evans, agents were at the scene.
At the time, Evans stopped short of calling the attack an act of terrorism, though he said it had “some of the hallmarks” and a “potential political agenda.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi released a statement “regarding a spate of recent attacks on Tesla property.”
“The swarm of violent attacks on Tesla property is nothing short of domestic terrorism,” Bondi said in the statement.
‘
An earlier version of this story misstated the date of the fire.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
Contact Akiya Dillon at [email protected].
