React app based on Vite is not able to serve build files – Failed to load module script

When serving a new Vite + React project like so

• Create new React + Vite project via npm create vite
• Select React => TypeScript
• Install dependencies via npm install
• Build via npm run build
• CD into dist dir
• Run app locally via npx http-serve
• Open url in browser

everything works as expected.

But when I delete the public directory and simplify the main.tsx file to

import React from 'react'
import ReactDOM from 'react-dom/client'

ReactDOM.createRoot(document.getElementById('root')!).render(
  <React.StrictMode>
    <div>Foo</div>
  </React.StrictMode>,
)

the application build looks fine but when serving it I get a blank page with the error message

Failed to load module script: Expected a JavaScript module script but the server responded with a MIME type of “application/octet-stream”. Strict MIME type checking is enforced for module scripts per HTML spec.

Does someone know what’s wrong or missing?