rumor that Obama wanted Mark Kelly as President, not Kamala:

China’s high-altitude spy balloon controversy appears to have taken most Washington lawmakers and the intelligence community by surprise, but it really shouldn’t have. China’s interest in these stratospheric dirigibles has been an open secret for nearly a decade.

Kelly himself has first-hand knowledge of China’s investments in near-space balloon technology. The Arizona senator co-founded a balloon space-exploration company named World View in 2012. Just two years later, he helped facilitate investments for the firm from Chinese tech giant Tencent, RealClearPolitics reported in 2020. Kelly’s eldest daughter, Claudia Kelly, served as World View’s business opportunity manager from 2016 to 2019, according to her LinkedIn profile.

When the Tucson-based company was first launched, it focused on space tourism with plans to charge $75,000 per commercial passenger on flights to near outer space in a capsule attached to a giant helium balloon. By 2015, the company 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 in 2019. According to his 2019-2021 financial disclosure report and amendments filed with the Senate as required, he maintained a $100,000-$250,000 financial stake in the company.

Kelly has at least one other tie to Tencent. His 2020 Senate campaign accepted $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.

Chinese news reports from November 2014 quoting Poynter show that Kelly was instrumental in securing the first Tencent investment. In an article in the Oriental Morning Post, translated from Mandarin, Poynter is quoted as saying that a “Tencent American leader named David met Mark Kelly, a space pilot of our team.”