A report from RealClearPolitics points out Democrat Mark Kelly has been mum on the financial “windfall” his company gained from the Chinese tech giant, Tencent.
Kelly is trying to unseat pro-gun Sen. Martha McSally (R-AZ), yet two things he rarely mentions are his support for stringent gun control or the money Tencent poured into his company.
According to RealClearPolitics:
Kelly…[has been] reticent about the investment by a Chinese company in a commercial space exploration venture he co-founded. The company, tech giant Tencent, is one of the world’s largest internet enterprises and owns the Chinese social media platform WeChat. The text platform has more than a billion users and is suspected of monitoring the activity of many of them inside and outside of China.
In the fall of 2014, the CEO of World View Enterprises, the company Kelly co-founded, announced during a visit to Beijing that Tencent had invested an undisclosed sum of money in the Tucson-based space travel venture. In April 2016, as part of a subsequent, $15 million investment round, World View announced that it had received more funds from Tencent, along with three other venture capital firms.
The report goes on to highlight Congressional concern over Tencent, with “several prominent lawmakers in recent weeks have deemed Tencent an arm of the Chinese Communist Party.”
RealClearPolitics notes “Kelly’s campaign has accepted at least $5,000 from David Wallerstein, who serves as Tencent’s chief exploration officer, responsible for the company’s operations outside mainland China and overseeing business initiatives with multinational partners.”
On April 11, 2020, the National Republican Senatorial Committee noted, “The Chinese firm Tencent is one of the major investors in the company Kelly co-founded, World View Enterprises. Last year as Tencent censored the NBA and shut down broadcasts over support for pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong.”
RealClearPolitics observes, “Kelly’s aversion to discussing Tencent’s investment in his company and campaign comes at a time when other lawmakers are making a priority of disclosing financial ties to the Chinese tech behemoth.”
On April 20, 2020, Breitbart News reported Kelly does not discuss his support for stringent gun controls as he campaigns around Arizona. And he does not talk about going into a Tucson gun store in February 2013 to show how easy it would be to pass a background check, only to find that he could not pass the check because he did not have proper ID.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.
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