Forgot Your Password?

New to The Nation? Subscribe

Print subscriber? Activate your online access

.nation-small__b{fill:#fff;}

Elon Musk’s James Talarico Smear Blew Up In His Face

But that doesn’t mean the danger from Musk’s lies is over.

Elon Musk and James Talarico.

As a trillionaire, Elon Musk has his finger in many pies, including electric cars, rockets, and satellites. But he seems to have a special passion for his social-media outlet X.com (formerly known as Twitter). Musk can be found on X at all hours of the day, often promoting far-right figures such as racist British provocateur Tommy Robinson. On Sunday, Musk was up to his usual X antics, repeatedly pushing a false story that James Talarico, the Texas Democratic Senate nominee, was absent from the campaign trail because he had suffered a mental breakdown and was receiving counseling at the Lindner Center of Hope, a mental health center in Ohio.

Musk has more than a passing interest in the Texas Senate race. He has residences and major business interests in the state, and on Monday, The New York Times revealed that he had given at least $10 million to a Texas super PAC trying to elect Talarico’s Republican opponent, Ken Paxton—as well as a whopping $158 million to the Senate Leadership Fund, a PAC supporting all GOP Senate candidates. (In total, the Times reported, Musk has funneled $276 million into the 2026 election cycle, making him what the paper called “by far the largest known donor in the midterms.”)

In truth, Talarico was recovering from the flu. But his convalescence led to a proliferation of conspiracy theories on the right. On Sunday, right-wing influencer Nick Sortor tweeted, “Ohio mental hospital CONFIRMS James Talarico was discharged from the facility earlier this week.” Sortor’s “confirmation” was a brief 45-second audio clip from another MAGA social-media personality, Rhein Amacher, purporting to show an employee of the Linder Center of Hope saying that Talarico had just been discharged.

Sortor presented the audio as a smoking gun that should end Talarico’s political career. Musk then amplified Sortor’s post and claimed, “The Talarico campaign is hiding something big that voters ought to know about.” The story was echoed far and wide by........

© The Nation