Democrat senator's ties to China revealed: Spy balloon firm he founded tied to Chinese investors

TUCSON, AZ - Democrat Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona found himself back in the headlines after reports revealed Sunday that in addition to his US Navy service in the Gulf War and his career as a NASA astronaut, Kelly cofounded a company specializing in the manufacture of spy balloons with a venture capitalist in China. The venture capitalist reportedly has deep ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

According to Fox News, Kelly, has re-entered national prominence after a relatively quiet four years as a U.S. Senator by making the short-list as a potential running mate for Kamala Harris' 2024 campaign. The report detailed that Kelly cofounded the company known as World View in 2012, with aspirations to use stratospheric balloons to provide a venue for space tourism.

However, that didn't remain the only goal, as eventually the firm's vision changed as the technology developed.

A spokesman for the company told Fox News, "As we matured our technology, we recognized an opportunity for immediate use cases for our technology through remote sensing services to defense, scientific and commercial customers. Today, our primary business remains providing remote sensing services to the U.S. Department of Defense and her allies by way of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities, as well as servicing scientific organizations like NASA, NOAA and others to better understand Earth from the unique atmospheric layer of the stratosphere."
 

In 2023, an Axios report revealed that World View received venture capital from Tencent, which is one of the largest tech companies in China, and among the most integrated with the CCP in both 2013 and 2016. World View president and CEO Ryan Hartman reportedly assured the Arizona Republic during the 2020 election cycle that Tencent had "zero access, zero input and zero control," over the firm's operations.

However, the company spokesman told Fox, "The current leadership believed it was a mistake for the company to accept Chinese investment when it did. When new leadership arrived in 2019 and learned of that investment, they swiftly moved to ensure World View was protected from any and all involvement from representatives of Chinese investors."

In 2020, The Federalist reported that Kelly's ties to China run deeper than previously known, with The Washington Free Beacon reporting in 2003, "Kelly attended the annual Young Leaders Forum, a five-day junket co-hosted by the Chinese People’s Institute of Foreign Affairs, which is ‘under the leadership of the Communist Party of China.’”

The outlet wrote that Kelly was personally invited to the forum by the Chinese government and that the trip was all-expenses-paid. Kelly would go on to attend the conference twice more in 2004 and 2005, describing the experience as "one of the absolute highlights of my life, second only to flying in space."

A Kelly spokesman claimed at the time that his involvement was "coordinated by NASA."