Seth Moulton disclosed defense-related investments that include two 2023 purchases of Iris Technology and webAI holdings valued at between $2 million and $10 million. He is scheduled to debate Ed Markey on Monday evening in the second of three televised debates before the September 1 Democratic primary for Senate.
The disclosure puts a 47-year-old former Marine and Massachusetts’s Sixth Congressional District representative in the middle of a race he has tried to cast as youth versus age. Moulton also spoke at a Hudson Institute event in November 2022 and said, “Every new weapons system should have sort of an AI component or capability or the ability to integrate that, because the reality is that this is the future of warfare. And again, I think we’re starting to find ourselves behind.”
webAI and Iris Technology
Moulton made three defense-related investments in all, according to the disclosure. He bought Iris Technology twice in 2023, with each purchase costing between $50,000 and $100,000, after the company launched webAI.
His most recent filing values his webAI stake at between $2 million and $10 million. He also holds between $115,000 and $250,000 in Divergent Technologies.
The webAI investment stands out because the company has close ties to The Pentagon and is positioned to profit from a new set of AI procurement provisions written into the most recent National Defense Authorization Act. Those provisions were supported by Moulton and came out of the subcommittee on which he serves.
P.J. Maykish and Roger Dean Huffstetler
webAI has hired five senior people directly from the defense establishment. Its new chief intelligence officer is P.J. Maykish, who previously directed classified research for the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence.
Roger Dean Huffstetler, Moulton’s first chief of staff, is webAI’s head of policy. The company’s staffing and policy connections place it close to the same defense ecosystem that Moulton has helped shape through AI-related policy work.
The third company in the disclosure, Oura Health, is not known as a defense tech firm. The mix of holdings leaves Moulton with investments in companies affected by defense policy while he is also arguing for more Pentagon investment in AI.
Monday evening debate
Markey has served in Congress since 1976 and is narrowly leading in polls ahead of the September 1 Democratic primary for Senate. The debate on Monday evening is the second of three televised debates, and it will put Moulton’s policy arguments and his financial disclosures in the same frame.
For voters, the relevant question is not whether Moulton supports AI procurement in the abstract. It is whether a candidate who says AI is the future of warfare should be judged differently when his own filings show large private investments in companies tied to that market.
Seth Moulton challenges Ed Markey with housing, transit pitch sits alongside the disclosure because the debate is now about more than policy positions. The filings give voters a concrete line of inquiry: how much access a sitting lawmaker had to private placement opportunities in webAI before putting money into the company.
