(PHOENIX) — Before Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly emerged as one of the lead contenders for vice president on the Democratic ticket, the former NASA astronaut earned more than a million dollars on the speaking circuit by regaling companies and colleges with tales of his triumphs in space.
Kelly, who was a U.S. Navy attack pilot before spending a decade as a NASA Space Shuttle pilot, earned more than $1.7 million in speaking fees over the two years before he was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2020, financial disclosures show.
The senator, who has been floated as one of the possible candidates to be Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate, earned additional income from book deals and business consulting, according to the disclosures.
The $1.7 million came from 62 public speaking engagements from 2018 to 2019 — during which time Kelly sometimes delivered multiple speeches per day in different states, records show. On Nov. 18, 2018, for example, Kelly made $72,250 from three separate speeches in California, Minnesota, and Oregon.
Among those that paid Kelly for speeches were the American Society of Dermatological Surgery, which paid him $25,500, Chobani, the yogurt company, which paid him $58,250, and the Sexual Medicine Society of North America, which paid him $29,750.
Kelly later returned $55,250 that he made from a speech for Pink Tank, a Dubai-based consulting company, after it was made public that the event was sponsored by the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi. At the time, a spokesperson for Kelly’s Senate campaign said Kelly’s speech was “focused entirely on Mark sharing experiences in space and discussing our countries’ space programs.”
In 2019, the Arizona senator also reported $1.5 million in income from Kelly Aerospace Consulting LLC, an Arizona limited liability company he registered in 2017, along with other income he earned from board member positions and from consulting.
The financial disclosures from that year show that Kelly held 16 positions for which he was compensated, including a position with Space X, the spacecraft manufacturer owned by Elon Musk.
According to disclosures from 2020 to 2022, Kelly stepped away from most of his board member positions and stopped doing paid public speaking engagements.
Since 2020, Kelly’s income has mostly come from his investments and stocks, and from royalties and advances from his several books.
In 2021, Kelly reported six royalty agreements for books he has written or co-written, which include several children’s books as well as the book “Gabby,” a book written with his wife, former Rep. Gabby Giffords, that recounts the 2011 mass shooting that left her partly paralyzed and with difficulty speaking.
Kelly’s most recent financial disclosures are from 2022. He requested an extension to file his disclosures for 2023.
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