Elon Musk elevated a false conspiracy theory about Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico over the weekend, lifting a fringe claim concerning the Texan’s mental health to the forefront of users’ X feeds, where it garnered hundreds of thousands of impressions.
“The Talarico campaign is hiding something big that voters ought to know about,” Musk wrote Sunday afternoon, replying to a post alleging that Talarico had been checked into the Lindner Center of Hope, a mental health facility in suburban Cincinnati. Musk’s reply amassed over 870,000 views, more than double the impression count of the post to which he was responding.
The theory had been circulating online for days, fueled by Talarico’s absence from the campaign trail, which his team has consistently said was due to the flu. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton promoted a “Tala-Freak-Out Tip Line” on Friday, which was still active as of Monday night. President Donald Trump weighed in, arguing the Democrat’s convalescence was too long to be the “flu bug.”
Musk’s engagement with the theory gave it a much wider audience — and the flurry of attention ultimately prompted the treatment center in Mason, Ohio, to publicly refute the allegations.
“Rep. James Talarico has never received treatment from Lindner Center of Hope,” the facility wrote in a statement posted to X, five hours after Musk’s initial posts on the subject. Talarico replied to the post Monday, saying he had “never even been to Ohio,” with a laughing emoji.
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