Tim Sheehy, the Republican set to turn Montana and the US Senate red, has racked up $180mn of losses in his last five and a half years running the Nasdaq-listed aerial firefighting company Bridger Aerospace. There’s a risk it goes bust between Sheehy winning next week and becoming one of the wealthiest men to enter the Senate in January. With the US fire season drawing to a close, results that will indicate Bridger’s ability to survive until the next one are due later in November.
Blackstone said it “helped support the expansion of Bridger’s life-saving mission fighting devastating wildfires in communities across the country”, that it does not support individual candidates, staff have donated to both sides in Montana and that “all political donations by our employees are strictly personal”. Sheehy’s side projects included investing in a business that provides training to Bridger’s pilots.