Kelly, 60 years old, is an astronaut and former US Navy Captain who represents Arizona in the US Senate.

Mark Kelly, D.-Ariz. was an astronaut before becoming a Senator. He also co-founded the company, a spy balloon manufacturer, that was partly funded by a Chinese venture capitalist with strong ties to China’s Communist Party.

Kelly is reported to be on the shortlist of candidates for running mate under consideration by Vice-President Kamala Harris. She co-founded Tucson-based World View, in Arizona, in 2012, with a vision of providing space tourism through stratospheric ballons.

Kelly’s Company began with a focus in space tourism using balloons. However, as the technology of the company matured, so did the vision.

A spokesperson for World View said to Fox News Digital that as their technology matured, they saw an immediate opportunity for use cases of our technology in remote sensing services for defense, scientific, and commercial customers. Today, World View’s primary business is providing remote sensing capabilities to the U.S. Department of Defense, and its allies, through intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities. We also serve scientific organizations such as NASA, NOAA, and others, to better understand Earth by way of the unique atmosphere layer of the stratosphere.

Axios reported in 2013 that World View received venture capital funding from Tencent shortly after its launch.

Tencent, one of China’s biggest corporations, was founded by “Pony Ma Huateng”, Zhang Zhidong Xu Chenye Chen Yidan in 1998. Forbes ranked “Pony Ma Huateng” as the fourth richest man in China last year with a $32.1 billion net worth. Ma is also CEO of Tencent.

The Wall Street Journal published a report in 2021 stating that Tencent had collected an enormous amount of data from its WeChat mobile app, which is the dominant social media platform in China. Data was collected by processing the chats and financial transactions from its one billion active monthly users, many of whom are in China. The Chinese government has used WeChat as a powerful tool to monitor Tencent’s users. It reportedly controls Tencent and has them suppress any dissenting opinions.

World View, citing Tencent’s links to the Chinese government on Fox News Digital, said that Tencent had “zero input, zero access and zero control” of the company.

A spokesperson for the company said that “the current leadership thought it was a mistake to accept Chinese investments when they did.” When the new leadership learned about this investment in 2019, they immediately took steps to protect World View from Chinese investors.

Kelly’s early connections to the Chinese capitalist may raise questions, particularly after China launched a surveillance ballon over the U.S.A. in February 2023. The balloon was shot down by an American fighter jet just off the coast South Carolina.

The incident sparked tensions between America and China. There were also concerns that China was spying on America.

Kelly left his post at World View to prepare for his U.S. Senate campaign in 2019.

A spokesperson for the company said that the financial interest Kelly still has in World View was secured in an blind trust. Kelly also gave up his control, access and interest in the company upon leaving.

According to Axios, in 2014, Jane Poynter was the former CEO of World View. She told Chinese media outlet Pengpai, that Kelly had met with David Wallerstein (the head of Tencent USA) and “introduced the space tourism technology” to him.

Kelly told The Arizona Republic that in 2020 he had “a very brief conversation” lasting between 30 seconds and a minute with a Tencent employee.

Kelly has not responded to Fox News Digital requests for comment.

The New York Times published a feature on Kelly, Friday. The article highlighted the Navy veteran’s achievements in the political world. The New York Times spoke to Republican operative Daniel Scarpinato about what Kelly might face as a vice presidential candidate.

“Mr. Kelly also hasn’t been in the spotlight of a nationwide campaign and has political liabilities such as a high altitude surveillance balloon firm he helped establish with Chinese venture capital,” The New York Times wrote about Scarpinato’s view.