Democratic U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico took aim at Elon Musk during a campaign rally on Friday at the University of Texas at Austin.

Talarico, facing Republican Ken Paxton in the November 3 election, accused the billionaire of attempting to purchase political influence through massive donations. He claimed Musk had funneled $158 million into super PACs backing Paxton.

"Elon Musk is trying to buy the Senate seat," Talarico told supporters. "We just found out that the richest man in the world is almost single-handedly bankrolling this effort to install Ken Paxton in the U.S. Senate."

The candidate contrasted his own campaign, which he said draws from 1.3 million individual donors, with Paxton's reliance on a single large contributor. Talarico repeated claims that Musk seeks Texas land, water, and taxpayer funds for business interests including data centers.

"Texas is not for sale," Talarico declared to the crowd of students and supporters.

Musk, who has relocated several companies including Tesla, SpaceX, and X to Texas, donated the funds to the Senate Leadership Fund in September. The super PAC then transferred the amount to a Texas PAC supporting Paxton, according to federal filings.

Musk has also posted multiple criticisms of Talarico on X in recent days, calling the Democrat a "creep" with "pure evil" ideas.

The Texas Senate race has drawn national attention due to the scale of outside spending. Early voting is underway ahead of the November election.