Kelly Helped Secure Chinese Tech Giant's Stake in Firm
Mark Kelly, the former NASA astronaut trying to oust Arizona GOP Sen. Martha McSally, the first female fighter pilot to fly in combat, was far more involved in facilitating a Chinese investment in a space exploration company Kelly co-founded than his campaign has previously acknowledged, according to Chinese news reports quoting the company’s then-CEO Jane Poynter and statements Poynter made to RealClearPolitics.
The story from officials at World View, the company Kelly co-founded, about Chinese tech giant Tencent’s involvement in the company also has shifted in recent weeks as it’s faced more media scrutiny for its decision to accept two sets of investments from the Chinese company. Tencent is one of the world’s largest internet enterprises and the owner of the popular Chinese social media platform WeChat, a texting application with more than a billion users. In recent years, it has faced international scrutiny over widespread suspicions and reports that it monitors the activity of many of its users both inside and outside China.
Those security fears have only increased this year amid the coronavirus pandemic and rising concerns about Chinese disinformation, spying and surveillance. A recent University of Toronto study found that WeChat has been censoring keywords relating to the COVID-19 outbreak since at least Jan. 1. Just last week, India banned Tencent’s WeChat app over concerns that it was secretly stealing users’ data and sending it back to China.
Critics of U.S. companies with Chinese investors, including World View, say the Chinese government uses the business relationships to steal U.S. defense and tech secrets and boost its own economy, at America’s expense.
In 2012 Kelly and several other former NASA astronauts and space-exploration experts founded World View, an Arizona-based company offering to take scientific instruments and people into earth’s stratosphere. At first the company focused on space tourism as its business model, with plans to charge $75,000 per commercial passenger on flights to near outer space in a capsule attached to a huge helium balloon.
In recent years, however, the company has increasingly shifted to contracting with NASA and the Department of Defense to use the balloon, known as a Stratollite, to carry unmanned payloads for extended periods and provide imagery of the Earth with a resolution sharp to five centimeters, far better than satellites can offer.
Kelly served as a strategic adviser to World View until launching his Senate campaign last year. He maintains a $100,000-$250,000 financial stake in the company in non-public stock and stock options of $15,001 and $50,000, according to the financial disclosure records Kelly filed in his Senate bid. His eldest daughter also works there as the company’s business opportunity manager.
Additionally, Kelly’s campaign has accepted at least $5,000 from David Wallerstein, Tencent’s chief exploration officer, responsible for the company’s operations outside mainland China and business initiatives with multinational partners. Wallerstein’s North American investment company, called Mount McKinley, is a subsidiary of Tencent and shares an address with Tencent’s headquarters in China.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/07/09/kelly_helped_secure_chinese_tech_giants_stake_in_firm.html