Things exploded on X (formerly Twitter) when key Trump ally Roger Stone sounded off on Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ) and his wife for supposed treason over Kelly’s alleged ties to a Chinese company that makes balloons, including, Stone alleged, surveillance balloons.
As background, Fox News Digital reports that Kelly, a former astronaut, co-founded a Tucson, Arizona-based company called World View in 2012, with the aim of using it to promote space tourism. However, the company soon shifted into making surveillance balloons, and took on fundraising capital from the Chinese company Tencent, which is CCP-connected and involved in surveillance projects in China. Kelly stepped away from the company in 2019, after it raised capital from Tencent both in 2013 and 2016.
So, though World View’s customers appear to be both the Department of Defense and America’s military partners and allies, Kelly has faced sharp scrutiny because of his ties to a company that was funded in part by a People’s Republic of China company and produces surveillance equipment. It was that story about World View that Stone referenced when in a furious spat with Kelly on X.
The spat began when Kelly accused Trump of corruption, posting, “Trump is cashing in on his presidency and making millions from his own crypto coins. It’s corruption in broad daylight. I’m co-sponsoring a bill to make it illegal for the President, the Vice President, administration officials, and members of Congress to issue, sponsor, or endorse crypto assets for profit. It’s time to put a stop to this.”
Stone fired back in a quote tweet of Kelly’s post, calling the senator a traitor and saying he should face capital punishment if convicted. Stone wrote, “Senator Mark Kelly is cashing in on his US Senate seat as a partner in a Chinese communist company that makes surveillance balloons. He should be charged with treason and if convicted executed , consistent with federal law.”
That, in turn, sparked an attack from Gabriel Giffords, the wife of Sen. Kelly. She said, attacking both Elon Musk and Roger Stone, “Elon Musk called my husband @CaptMarkKelly a traitor. Yesterday, Roger Stone said he should be executed for treason. After last year, Trump and his allies should understand that the threat of political violence is real. It stole a job that I loved. Inciting violence is unAmerican — it’s what extremists do. Anyone serious about protecting this country should know the difference.”
Stone fired back in a comment on her post in which he reiterated the World View claim, though without noting that Kelly stepped away from the company in 2019 and placed his ownership issue in a blind trust, saying, “What I actually said, of course, was that your husband being partners with a communist Chinese company that makes surveillance balloons that are used to spy on America, which I believe is treasonous.”
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Concluding, Stone noted that Giffords was somewhat distorting his claim about treason and capital punishment, writing, “I said he should be TRIED and if convicted, of course the penalty for treason is capital punishment. But of course you left that part out. Typical left-wing distortion.!”