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Tuesday, Apr. 22, 2025

Is Sen. Mark Kelly a partner in a Chinese company with ties to the Communist Party?

Carmela Guaglianone, Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting
no

U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., joined Tucson-based World View Enterprises, a surveillance balloon company that does business with the U.S. government, shortly after it began operations in 2013. While World View received some early venture capital funding from Chinese company Tencent, which has ties to the governing Chinese Communist Party, the firm was not granted any control or input in exchange, World View CEO Ryan Hartman has said. 

World View was initially founded as a space tourism company and later began taking on government defense work. Tencent stopped investing in the company following that shift. 

Kelly served as a director, then strategic advisor at World View until 2019, when he stepped down ahead of his first run for office. He transferred his financial stake in the company to a blind trust in 2021, according to candidate disclosure documents.

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