Former astronaut Sen. Mark Kelly started spy balloon company funded by China

Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly was an astronaut before going into politics, but also started a balloon company with a vision of space tourism, before evolved into offering surveillance.

Before becoming a senator, Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., was not only an astronaut, but he also co-founded a company that specializes in spy balloons, which was funded, in part, by a venture capitalist in China with close ties to the Chinese Communist Party.

Kelly, who is reportedly on a short list of running mate contenders under consideration by Vice President Kamala Harris, co-founded Tucson, Arizona-based World View in 2012 with a vision to provide space tourism using stratospheric balloons.

While Kelly’s company started out with a focus on space tourism via balloons, the vision evolved with the maturing of the company’s technology.

"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," a spokesperson for World View told Fox News Digital. "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."

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Axios reported that shortly after World View was started, it received venture capital from Tencent in 2013, then again in 2016.

Tencent is one of China's largest corporations, and it was founded in 1998 by "Pony" Ma Huateng, Zhang Zhidong, Xu Chenye, Chen Yidan and Zeng Liqing. Last year, "Pony" Ma Huateng was listed by Forbes as the fourth-richest man in China with a net worth of $32.1 billion. Ma is also the CEO of Tencent.

The Wall Street Journal reported in 2021 that Tencent collected a trove of data over the years from its mobile app WeChat, the predominant social-media platform in China. The data was collected through its processing of the chat conversations and financial transactions of its over one billion monthly active users, most of them in China. That has made the company’s platform WeChat a powerful surveillance tool for the Chinese government, which reportedly regulates Tencent and regularly has it suppress dissenting views.

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With Tencent’s ties to the Chinese government, World View told Fox News Digital on Saturday that Tencent has "zero access, zero input and zero control" over the company.

"The current leadership believed it was a mistake for the company to accept Chinese investment when it did," a company spokesperson said. "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."

But the company’s early connections with the Chinese capitalist could raise questions as Kelly is being considered as a candidate for vice president, especially after China floated a surveillance balloon over the U.S. in February 2023, which was ultimately shot down by a fighter jet off the coast of South Carolina.

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The incident raised tensions between the U.S. and China, along with concerns that the Chinese government was spying on America.

Kelly stepped away from his position at World View in 2019 to prepare for his U.S. Senate run.

The company spokesperson said the remaining financial interest Kelly has in World View is secured in a blind trust, adding Kelly gave up all of his access, interest and control of the company when he left.

Axios reported that in 2014, Jane Poynter, the former CEO of World View, told Chinese news outlet Pengpai that Kelly met with the head of Tencent USA, David Wallerstein, and "introduced space tourism technology to him."

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Kelly told The Arizona Republic in 2020 that he had a "very brief conversation" with an individual from Tencent which lasted from 30 seconds to a minute.

Kelly did not respond to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment on the matter.

The New York Times published an article about Kelly on Friday, highlighting the Navy veteran's accomplishments in the political arena. The publication spoke with Republican operative Daniel Scarpinato, who weighed in on what Kelly could face if selected as a candidate for vice president.

"Mr. Kelly has also not faced the harsh spotlight of a national campaign, and has potential political liabilities like a high-altitude surveillance balloon company he helped found with Chinese venture capital," the New York Times wrote of Scarpinato's take.

Scarpinato could not be reached for further comment.

Along with providing surveillance, World View offers remote sensing services to oil and gas companies, utility companies, mining and shipping companies, and insurance companies, among others.