An Arizona balloon surveillance company, partly funded by Chinese investors, threatens to deflate Senator Mark Kelly's vice-presidential hopes as questions arise over his firm's early ties to China's Communist Party.
An Arizona balloon surveillance company, partly funded by Chinese investments, is jeopardizing Senator Mark Kelly's prospects of becoming Vice President Kamala Harris's running mate. Before his tenure as a senator, Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., was an astronaut and co-founded World View, a Tucson-based company specializing in spy balloons. This company received partial funding from a Chinese venture capitalist with close ties to the Chinese Communist Party.
Kelly, reportedly on the shortlist for Harris's running mate, established World View in 2012 to offer space tourism using stratospheric balloons. However, the company shifted its focus as its technology matured.
"Recognizing an opportunity for immediate use cases for our technology, we now provide remote sensing services to defense, scientific, and commercial customers," a World View spokesperson told Fox News Digital. "Our primary business today is offering remote sensing services to the U.S. Department of Defense and its allies through intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities, as well as servicing scientific organizations like NASA and NOAA."
According to Axios, World View received venture capital from Tencent in 2013 and 2016. Tencent, one of China's largest corporations, was founded in 1998 by "Pony" Ma Huateng and others. Forbes listed Ma as the fourth-richest man in China last year, with a net worth of $32.1 billion. Ma also serves as Tencent's CEO.
The Wall Street Journal reported in 2021 that Tencent gathered extensive data from its mobile app WeChat, China's leading social media platform. The data collection, including chat conversations and financial transactions from over a billion users, made WeChat a powerful surveillance tool for the Chinese government, which regulates Tencent and often suppresses dissenting views.
Despite Tencent's ties to the Chinese government, World View assured Fox News Digital that Tencent has "zero access, zero input, and zero control" over the company.
"The current leadership recognized the mistake of accepting Chinese investment," a company spokesperson said. "When new leadership took over in 2019, they quickly ensured that World View was protected from any involvement by Chinese investors."
However, the company's early connections with Chinese capital could raise concerns as Kelly is considered for the vice-presidential candidacy, especially after a Chinese surveillance balloon was shot down over the U.S. in February 2023.
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