Texas voters are watching one of the country's most expensive Senate races unfold in two places at once: at rallies across the state, and in short public posts on X. The platform's owner, Elon Musk, is not a bystander in the contest between Democratic nominee James Talarico and Republican nominee Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general. He is a participant, posting attacks on Talarico from his own account while his money backs Paxton.
The exchange sharpened on October 18, when Musk quote-posted another user's presentation of Talarico's positions and wrote, in full, “Talarico hates Texas.” Texas early voting for the November 3 election began the next day, October 19, according to the Texas Secretary of State's published schedule, so the posts landed while ballots were already being cast.
On October 21, Musk posted, “There is something deeply wrong with Talarico.” Talarico answered on X with a line he has since repeated at rallies: “There is something deeply wrong with a political system that allows one trillionaire to buy his own personal U.S. Senator.” The same day, speaking at the Hilton University of Houston, he told supporters that if they had seen an attack ad on a screen, gotten one in the mailbox, or received a scary text message about him, “that was Elon,” and closed with the message his campaign is aiming at Musk: “Texas is not for sale.”
The money behind the feud is a matter of campaign filings. CNBC reported that Musk donated 158 million dollars in September to the Senate Leadership Fund, a Republican super PAC, which sent the money to Texas PAC, a group backing Paxton. Musk also sent 10 million dollars to Lone Star Liberty PAC, another group supporting Paxton. Talarico's campaign, for its part, said it raised 64 million dollars in the third quarter, which CNBC described as the largest third-quarter tally ever reported by a Senate candidate, while Paxton's campaign raised 18 million dollars in the same quarter.
The posts kept coming. On October 23, a resurfaced clip of Talarico's November 2018 swearing-in speech as a state representative — in which he said that “with every border wall, with every bathroom bill, we degrade our reputation and we dishonor our legacy” — circulated again on X. Musk quote-posted it with his own characterization of Talarico's views. Author Stephen King then quote-posted Musk to argue back, and Talarico returned to the theme on stage in Austin the same day, telling a University of Texas rally that Paxton was backed by, in his words, “one dude,” while his own movement was supported by 1.3 million individuals.
For everyday X users, the episode is a clear look at how the platform now works during an election. The owner can join a race personally, in public, between the same posts everyone else reads, and a candidate's fastest reply is a post of his own that supporters can quote, repost, and turn into rally material within hours. None of it happens in a press release. It happens on the timeline, in the open, with early voting already under way and election day on November 3.