Talarico names Musk at Denton event: "Musk is trying to buy this Senate seat in Texas"

At an event in Denton on Monday, October 19, 2026, Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico named Elon Musk’s spending directly. Common Dreams quotes him: “Musk is trying to buy this Senate seat in Texas,” and “In all likelihood, if you have seen an attack ad on your TV, that was Elon.” He then listed mail and text messages, and said “Ken Paxton is funded by one dude” against his own 1.3 million individual donors. The line carried in a clip posted that day was “Elon Musk wants our land, he wants our water, he wants his very own personal United States senator.” He closed with “Texas is not for sale.”

Four days earlier, at a San Marcos rally on October 15, Talarico used a David-and-Goliath frame and, per the AP, did not mention Musk or the outside spending. The October 19 quotes are from one outlet’s report of the speech; the video itself was not reviewed. The IBTimes account of an October 19 MS NOW interview has him saying “Elon wants our land”, including a state park claim; he offered no evidence of any exchange, per that report. No Talarico campaign ad or fundraising email about Musk was found.

What was spent against him is at 2026-09-09–slf-q3-report-shows-musk-75-million-and-83-million-passed-to-texas-pac and 2026-10-12–musk-276m-new-midterm-giving-since-july-366m-cycle-total-nyt.