Space travel helped to make Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly a multimillionaire on Earth.
The astronaut turned politician is one of the wealthier members of U.S. Congress — and the most well-heeled of his state's delegation.
Kelly, a top contender to become Vice President Kamala Harris' running mate on the Democratic ticket, has a net worth between $8 and $34 million, based on Senate financial disclosure forms.
These forms, filed in 2023, cover the 2022 calendar year. Assets are reported in ranges.
Records show the bulk of Kelly's money comes from investments, book deals and speaking engagements, including a couple his political rivals won't let him live down: a motorcycle ride onto a Chinese stage to hawk nutritional supplements, in 2015; and a 2018 lecture backed by the crown prince of Abu Dhabi for $55,000 that Kelly later returned.
Kelley's 2024 financial disclosure forms are months past due, continuing a pattern of annual late filings that began in 2019, records show. He filed for an extension in May.
But his previous filings provide a window into his assets and income.
Kelly in the 2023 report said he and his wife, former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Arizona, have 13 assets, including retirement annuities, bank accounts, a life insurance policy and a residential property.
Kelly's most lucrative assets are five accounts held in qualified blind trusts valued anywhere from $6.6 million to $31 million, records show.
Blind trusts are set up to create distance between individuals and assets, often to prevent conflicts of interests among legislators, with an independent third party acting as a manager to protect the funds.
He also reported receiving up to $15,000 in income in 2022 from a media production company he manages with his twin brother, Scott, called Lightspeed Partners.
Kelly in 2021 put stock from a balloon and surveillance company he co-founded called World View into a blind trust. A year later, he co-sponsored a bill to prohibit federal lawmakers and their immediate family from trading stock while in office by requiring them to put their stock portfolios in blind trusts.
The bill has not yet been passed in Congress but has gained bipartisan support.
How did Sen. Mark Kelly make his money?
Kelly and Giffords' wealth grew from the time before an assassin's bullet forced her to retire from Congress to when he launched his first U.S. Senate bid in 2020 to replace the late Sen. John McCain.
Giffords, in 2011, reported she and her husband were worth about $2.1 million.In 2019, Kelly's financial disclosure showed the couple was worth between $10 million and $27 million.
The retired Navy combat veteran who became the NASA astronaut to fly four space shuttle missions, twice as commander, leveraged his experiences into celebrity status.
It wasn't without controversy. He did business with Chinese interests, participated in a marketing strategy criticized as sexist, and had financial ties to businesses at odds with his stance on environmental conservation.
Kellyand Giffords also launched a gun violence prevention group after the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School that left 20 children and six adults dead. Their nonprofit is called Giffords. Neither Kelly nor Giffords reported receiving any income from it.
Kelly has not reported receiving any compensation from speeches in his past three annual filings. In 2020, he received about $337,000 in honoraria or payments to charity for 13 speeches, according to the reports.
He spoke to the Everglades Foundation and John Deere. He also appeared at local town halls, colleges and the Electric Utility Fleet Manager's Conference.
That was a fraction of what he got In 2019 when Kelly reported payments for 62 events, the highest of which was $58,250, from auto manufacturer Subaru of America.
In his latest filing, Kelly reported receiving $5,763 in royalties from publisher Simon and Schuster in 2022.
He listed agreements on six books from 2011 to 2021, including two co-written with Giffords, one titled "Gabby" and the other "Enough: Our Fight to Keep America Safe from Gun Violence." The four other books are children's adventure stories related to space travel.
Kelly also reported getting $5,000 from Imagine Kids and Family LLC for a TV/ film rights agreement that expired in 2022.
According to the 2023 report, Kelly held two positions outside of the U.S. Senate: one as a manager of El Campo Center in Tucson, which appears to be a small commercial strip mall, and the other as a managing member of Lightspeed Partners.
How does Kelly's net worth compare with other Arizona members of Congress?
Based on the range of assets reported on disclosure forms in 2023, Kelly is by far the wealthiest member of Arizona's 11-member congressional delegation.
Republican Rep. Andy Biggs reported a range of assets from $720,009 to $6.1 million, followed by Republican representatives Debbie Lesko, with a range from $1.1 million to $2.4 million, and Eli Crane, with a range from $948,012 to $2.1 million.
Reporter Ronald J. Hansen contributed to this article.
Robert Anglen is an investigative reporter for The Republic. Reach him atrobert.anglen@arizonarepublic.com. Follow him on X@robertanglen.
