New Ad Highlights How Seth Moulton Is Getting Rich Off Trump’s Reckless Wars

August 13, 2026 — Commonwealth Together PAC today began airing a new ad that highlights how Senate candidate Seth Moulton has gotten rich investing in private defense companies while serving on the House Armed Services Committee and voting to fund those same defense companies.

Titled ‘Thirteen,’ the ad highlights Seth Moulton’s skyrocketing investments in three private defense companies that are profiting off Trump’s reckless wars: webAI, Oura, and Divergent.

“Seth Moulton has amassed millions of dollars by investing in three privately-held defense companies, even while he sits on the House Armed Services Committee. These investments weren’t available to regular people, but Moulton got a special opportunity to buy in, even as he was voting to relax government procurement rules to enable Pentagon investments in private startups. Then the stocks skyrocketed as the companies pursued valuable Department of Defense contracts, making Moulton millions. This is exactly the type of dirty dealing Americans hate about Washington,” said George Bachrach, former president of the Environmental League of Massachusetts and senior advisor to the Commonwealth Together PAC backed by unions and environmental leaders. “Nearly a year ago, Seth Moulton admitted he faces a conflict of interest because of his defense company investments, but he’s still refusing to divest from these companies. And while Moulton says he plans to move the investments to a blind trust, that wouldn’t prevent him from reaping the benefits of his own votes. As recently as last December, Moulton voted for yet another defense funding bill that helped boost his own private investments. The facts are clear: Seth Moulton is getting rich off Trump’s reckless wars. We just can’t trust him to do what’s right for Massachusetts.”

The ad, backed by a six-figure media buy, will air on digital channels, connected television, and social media platforms. It’s the fourth ad in an ongoing multi-million-dollar ad campaign by the Commonwealth Together PAC, which was organized earlier this year to support Senator Ed Markey’s reelection and oppose Seth Moulton’s candidacy. The PAC has aired three prior ads: ‘Run’ and ‘Chameleon’ aired on digital channels, while ‘Consistent’ aired on broadcast and cable TV.

The PAC is backed by major labor unions including 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, the Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA), AFSCME, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the New England Regional Council of Carpenters (NERCC), the International Association of Firefighters (IAFF), the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), as well as local environmental leaders and other supporters of Senator Markey’s leadership in the U.S. Senate.

The Commonwealth Together PAC regularly files FEC disclosures showing all money raised and spent. That’s a major contrast to MA Progress Action, the pro-Moulton dark money group that, despite its blatant electioneering, isn't revealing any information about its donors or spending. That means voters don't know how much Seth Moulton's private equity backers are pouring into this race, or who exactly is spending potentially millions of dollars to elect him. Earlier this year, the Campaign Legal Center, the DC-based nonpartisan voting rights & election integrity group, filed an FEC complaint alleging that MA Progress Action is violating federal independent-expenditure reporting requirements and campaign finance laws with its political ad attacking Sen. Ed Markey. And of the $2.248 million in fundraising reported to the FEC to date by the separate pro-Moulton Advance Progress PAC, nearly all comes from private equity donors, with more than half coming from outside of Massachusetts.

The facts:

1. Seth Moulton has enriched himself through ballooning investments in private defense companies while sitting on the House Armed Services Committee. The year he arrived in Congress, Seth Moulton reported owning taxable securities of stock and an IRA worth a maximum of $151,000. His last job before Congress was co-founding and helping run Eastern Healthcare Partners, which was going out of business by 2015 and still owes more than $500,000 in taxes to Delaware. But now, after a little over a decade in Congress, Moulton has an estimated net worth of $13.1 million, based on the midpoints of his disclosed asset valuations. His net worth could be as much as $21 million.

Much of Moulton’s new wealth is due to his investment in three privately-held companies doing Defense Department business — investments that were not available to average investors. Recent reporting suggests that Moulton was given the exclusive opportunity to invest in these companies by one of his top political donors, private equity investor David Shuman.

2. Moulton's investments in private defense companies are now worth between $3 million and $15 million, and have significantly increased in value while he sits on the House Armed Services Committee.

Moulton's investment in webAI, a private equity-backed US Army contractor that was selected this year as an industry partner in the U.S. Army’s Project ARIA (Army Rapid Implementation of Artificial Intelligence), has grown from between $30,0002 and $100,000 (he owns shares in both his taxable account and his Roth IRA, each initially bought in 2023 for between $15,0001 and $50,000) to between $2 million and $10 million in 2025. Moulton’s first chief of staff, Roger Dean Huffstetler, is now webAI’s head of policy.
Moulton’s investments in wearable AI tech company Oura, which partners with ICE/military contractor Palantir and calls the Defense Department its largest enterprise customer, have grown from between $100,001 and $250,000 in 2021 to between $1 million and $5 million in 2024 and 2025.
Moulton bought two rounds of stock in Divergent Technologies, an “additive manufacturing” defense tech company that 3D-prints missiles as part of Trump's 'Arsenal of Freedom' and does substantial business with ICE/military contractor Palantir. Divergent and webAI Inc. also have a partnership to “reshape digital manufacturing by embedding generative artificial intelligence directly into hardware systems.” In August 2023 he bought $50,001-$100,000 and July 2025 he bought another $15,001-$50,000. In his 2025 disclosure, he reports the investments are worth between $50,001-100,000.

In defending Moulton’s stock purchases, his spokesperson has falsely claimed that none of the companies “had any ties to the defense sector when the investments were made.” That’s blatantly false: Moulton bought his second batch of Divergent stock two months after the company announced a highly-publicized partnership with ICE/military contractor Palantir to supply the defense industry. Moulton also bought his stock in Oura in 2021, two years after the company started working with the military.

3. In Congress, Seth Moulton has advocated to relax Pentagon procurement rules to allow more government investments in the same private defense startups he’s investing in. Moulton is the Ranking Member of the House Armed Services Committee’s Subcommittee on Cyber, Information Technologies, and Innovation, where he has been an advocate for overhauling defense acquisition practices so the U.S. military can quickly field and scale private commercial technologies, including AI and “additive manufacturing” (otherwise known as 3D printing), a process pioneered by Divergent Technologies on metal parts.

As Chair of the Armed Services Committee’s Future of Defense Task Force, Moulton authored a 2020 report that made recommendations for the future direction of U.S. defense policy. The report’s Number 1 recommendation: “Using the Manhattan Project as a model, the United States must undertake and win the artificial intelligence race by leading in the invention and deployment of AI while establishing the standards for its public and private use.” The report also recommended that “the Pentagon must continue to improve its ability to leverage private sector innovation at scale, including that from non-traditional companies, recognizing that the private sector, not the government, is now the leader in research and development investment.”

In November 2022, Moulton 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.”

4. Moulton has voted numerous times for defense authorization bills that approve Department of Defense funding for additive manufacturing and military uses of AI, the technologies used by the companies he's invested in. Between 2016 and 2025, Moulton voted for all but one National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and most of the accompanying House Armed Services Committee reports, which increasingly called for more Pentagon spending on AI and on the 3D printing process pioneered by Divergent Technologies on metal parts.

In December 2025, Moulton voted in favor of the Defense Authorization Act of 2026, which authorized $900 billion for Trump’s foreign wars while accelerating the approval process for AI and additive manufacturing systems like those produced by WebAI, Oura, and Divergent. The 2026 NDAA contained language authorizing the Department of Defense to create a “Civil Reserve Manufacturing Network,” a program which the Washington Post reported "was clearly written to fit Divergent.” Senator Markey voted against the bill.

In September 2025, Moulton admitted that this conflict of interest exists, saying “I have become aware that Divergent Technologies has broadened their business to include the manufacture of components for multiple defense and aerospace companies that I interact with on the House Armed Services Committee.” At the time, Moulton claimed he could not “recuse myself from my constitutional duty to vote on matters coming from the House,” even if they impact companies he has invested in. But in 2026, once he was running for Senate and under pressure for his clear conflicts of interest, he said he would recuse himself from these votes in the future.

5. Moulton’s defense investments illustrate his ties to Palantir, the Peter Thiel-backed defense tech company/ICE contractor that has been widely criticized for its work surveilling Americans civilian protestors and for its development of tracking technology that targets people for deportation. Palantir executives have supported Moulton financially throughout his career while he was investing in companies linked to Palantir.

A well-publicized Palantir-Divergent partnership to provide Palantir with manufacturing capabilities was announced before Moulton made his second major investment in Divergent. Palantir’s valuation has since surged, with 11 consecutive quarters of accelerating growth, fueled in part by the federal work it has secured with Divergent Technologies.
Oura also works with Palantir to “host its processing of consenting military personnel's biometric data.”
While Palantir was ramping up its influence in Congress in 2016 and securing more federal work, two Palantir executives gave Moulton $1,500, according to Open Secrets.
The “Employees of Palantir Technologies” PAC gave Moulton $2,500 in February 2025 – money he quietly returned nearly one year later, on Jan. 30, 2026. But he never returned his donations from Palantir executives and continues to benefit financially from Palantir’s partnership with his holdings in Divergent Technologies and Oura.

6. Seth Moulton has taken millions from corporate PACs and private equity executives. According to Open Secrets, Moulton has taken more than $2 million from corporate PACs during his congressional career, including $113,000 during this campaign cycle.

Moulton has also received more than $5 million from donors connected to the private equity and venture capital industries — more than 1 in 4 dollars raised over his career. They're his most reliable source of campaign contributions every election cycle. In two election cycles, 2016 and 2020, Moulton ranked in the top seven among all members of the House – in both parties – for the highest support from “private equity and investment” donors, according to Open Secrets. And of the $2.248 million in fundraising reported to the FEC to date by the pro-Moulton Advance Progress PAC, nearly all comes from private equity executives, with more than half coming from outside of Massachusetts.

Script:

$13 million. That’s how much Seth Moulton’s amassed during his 12 years in Congress. Moulton sits on the Armed Services Committee and voted to fund the same defense companies he’s invested in. So as those companies get rich off Trump’s reckless wars, so does Seth Moulton. And after taking millions from corporate PACs and private equity, who knows what other insider deals Moulton has up his sleeve. We just can’t trust Seth Moulton.

The new ad can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZ7bq3Ls-50.

###

The Commonwealth Together PAC was formed by unions representing more than a quarter million Massachusetts workers, along with environmental and progressive leaders across the state, to support Ed Markey's reelection and ensure that Massachusetts voters understand the clear choice they face this September.