--- alias: - Thomas Harold Massie - Rep. Thomas Massie born: 1971-01-13 category: Political Figure created: 2026-09-25 location: Huntington, West Virginia (born) relations: - end: 2003 fn: 4 role: co-founder start: 1993 type: founded with: '[[SensAble Technologies]]' - end: 2027-01-03 fn: 1 role: representative for Kentucky's 4th congressional district start: 2012-11-13 type: member_of with: '[[United States House of Representatives]]' - fn: 4 type: spouse_of with: '[[Rhonda Massie]]' summary: MIT-trained engineer and Republican congressman from Kentucky who forced the 2025 House vote on the Epstein Files Transparency Act and lost his 2026 primary to a Trump-endorsed challenger after record super PAC spending. tags: - Person - ThomasMassie - Congress - RepublicanParty - Kentucky - EpsteinFilesTransparencyAct - DischargePetition - SuperPAC - MIT updated: 2026-09-25 --- Thomas Massie (born January 13, 1971, in Huntington, West Virginia) is an American engineer and Republican politician who has represented Kentucky's 4th congressional district since November 2012.[^1] With [Ro Khanna](/people/ro-khanna/) he wrote the [Epstein Files Transparency Act](/concepts/epstein-files-transparency-act/) and filed the discharge petition that forced it to a floor vote over the opposition of the House leadership and the [White House](/places/white-house/). [Donald Trump](/people/donald-trump/) endorsed a challenger against him, and on May 19, 2026, he lost the Republican primary after the most expensive House primary on record.[^2][^3] ### Engineering and SensAble Massie earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering in 1993 and a master's in mechanical engineering in 1996 at the [Massachusetts Institute of Technology](/organizations/massachusetts-institute-of-technology/). Working with Kenneth Salisbury at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, he built the PHANToM, a force-feedback interface that lets a user feel the shape and consistency of objects on a computer screen. In 1993 he and his wife, Rhonda Massie, founded SensAble Devices from his dormitory room; it was reincorporated in 1996 as SensAble Technologies when MIT's Bill Aulet joined. He won the first Lemelson-MIT Student Prize, of 30,000 dollars, and the MIT 10K business plan competition in 1995. The company raised 32 million dollars in venture capital, employed 70 people and held 24 patents; its customers included Disney, Boeing and Adidas. Massie left in 2003 and returned to Kentucky.[^4] Geomagic acquired SensAble's design and haptics businesses in April 2012.[^5] ### Congress Massie won a special election for the 4th district in November 2012 and was seated on November 13 of that year.[^1] When Trump ordered strikes on Iranian nuclear sites in June 2025, Massie posted, "This is not Constitutional," and argued that the executive branch cannot "unilaterally commit an act of war against a sovereign nation that hasn't attacked the [United States](/places/united-states/)." On June 22, 2025, Trump's senior political adviser Chris LaCivita confirmed that he and the pollster Tony Fabrizio would run a super PAC to unseat Massie.[^6] ### The Epstein Files On July 15, 2025, Khanna introduced H.R. 4405, the Epstein Files Transparency Act, "for himself and Mr. Massie."[^7] On September 2, 2025, Massie filed a discharge petition to force a vote. It reached 218 signatures on November 12, when Adelita Grijalva was sworn in after a delay of more than seven weeks; Massie, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert and Nancy Mace were the only Republicans to sign, and White House officials pressed Boebert and Mace to withdraw.[^8] The House passed the bill 427 to 1 on November 18, and Trump signed it on November 19.[^9] On January 13, 2026, Massie and Khanna asked the court in [United States v. Maxwell](/events/united-states-v-maxwell/) to appoint "a special master or independent monitor" over the department's compliance, stating that it had "publicly released only 12,285 documents" by January 5; Judge [Paul Engelmayer](/people/paul-engelmayer/) denied the motion on January 21 for lack of authority.[^10] On February 9, 2026, Massie and Khanna reviewed less-redacted files at the [Department of Justice](/organizations/department-of-justice/). Massie reported that an [FBI](/organizations/federal-bureau-of-investigation/) document listing co-conspirators had the name of a "well known retired CEO" redacted; Deputy Attorney General [Todd Blanche](/people/todd-blanche/) identified the man as [Leslie Wexner](/people/leslie-wexner/), unredacted the name and told Massie to "stop grandstanding." Wexner's representative said prosecutors had told his lawyers in 2019 that he was "neither a co-conspirator nor target."[^11][^12] Massie posted a 2009 email exchange in which Epstein wrote to a redacted correspondent, "where are you? are you ok, I loved the torture video," and the correspondent replied that he was in China; the unredacted files identified the correspondent as [Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem](/people/sultan-ahmed-bin-sulayem/), chairman and chief executive of [DP World](/organizations/dp-world/). Bin Sulayem, who has not been accused of a crime, did not respond to requests for comment and resigned from DP World on February 13, 2026; Massie wrote, "Today he resigns."[^13][^14] At a [House Judiciary Committee](/organizations/house-committee-on-the-judiciary/) hearing on February 11, Massie told Attorney General [Pam Bondi](/people/pam-bondi/), "Literally the worst thing you could do to the survivors, you did," and when she testified that Wexner's name had been restored within 40 minutes, answered, "Within 40 minutes of me catching you red-handed." Bondi called him "a failed politician" with "Trump derangement syndrome."[^15] On September 1, 2026, Massie and Khanna opened a discharge petition for an Epstein Files Transparency Act II, which would let members of Congress, state officials and survivors sue the department for noncompliance. Massie said the government "continues to withhold over three million files."[^16] ### The 2026 Primary MAGA KY, the super PAC run by LaCivita and Fabrizio, registered with the [Federal Election Commission](/organizations/federal-election-commission/) on June 19, 2025, with Charles Gantt as treasurer. Its first large receipts were 250,000 dollars from John Paulson on June 26, 2025, and on June 27 one million dollars from Paul Singer of Elliott Management and 750,000 dollars from Preserve America PAC, which is associated with Miriam Adelson. From December 2025 through May 2026 it received transfers from America 21 PAC totaling about 4.4 million dollars; America 21's donors in the same period included Singer (one million dollars each on November 14, 2025, April 8 and May 7, 2026), the Elliott executive Jonathan Pollock (one million dollars), Stephen Schwarzman of Blackstone (400,000 dollars) and Paulson. MAGA Inc., Trump's principal super PAC, gave MAGA KY 500,000 dollars on May 14, 2026. By July 15, 2026, MAGA KY had raised 7,984,000 dollars and reported 7.48 million dollars in independent expenditures.[^17][^18] The United Democracy Project, the super PAC of AIPAC, spent 4.1 million dollars, mostly on advertising against Massie, and the Republican Jewish Coalition's Victory Fund 3.9 million dollars, mostly for his opponent. A further committee, Kentucky 4th PAC, was funded by a single donor, Tamarack Aspen Inc., whose owners were not disclosed.[^18] Trump endorsed Ed Gallrein, a retired Navy SEAL from Shelbyville, in October 2025.[^3] On the other side, Jeff Yass of Susquehanna International Group gave 7.5 million dollars to Protect Freedom PAC, of which he is the principal funder, on October 20, 2025; Protect Freedom gave one million dollars to the pro-Massie Kentucky First PAC three days later and 300,000 dollars more on April 15, 2026. Massie's campaign committee raised 8.78 million dollars in the cycle through June 30, 2026.[^17] About 37 million dollars was spent on the race by the campaigns and outside groups.[^18] Gallrein defeated Massie on May 19, 2026, by about ten percentage points.[^3][^18] His term ends on January 3, 2027.[^1] [^1]: United States Congress, legislator record for Thomas Massie (bioguide M001184), terms 2012-11-13 to 2027-01-03, Kentucky 4th district, compiled in the congress-legislators dataset. https://unitedstates.github.io/congress-legislators/legislators-current.json ; Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. https://bioguide.congress.gov/search/bio/M001184 [^2]: "Endorsed by Trump, Ed Gallrein defeats Rep. Thomas Massie in GOP House primary," NPR, May 19, 2026. https://www.npr.org/2026/05/19/nx-s1-5827183/massie-gallrein-kentucky-race-results-trump [^3]: "Here's what the Kentucky election results tell us about Ed Gallrein's win over Thomas Massie," Louisville Public Media, May 20, 2026. https://www.lpm.org/news/2026-05-20/heres-what-the-kentucky-election-results-tell-us-about-ed-gallreins-win-over-thomas-massie ; "Republican Thomas Massie who stood up to Trump defeated in Kentucky primary," Al Jazeera, May 20, 2026. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/5/20/republican-thomas-massie-who-stood-up-to-trump-defeated-in-kentucky-primary [^4]: Lemelson-MIT Program, "Thomas Massie," winner profile. https://lemelson-teams.mit.edu/winners/thomas-massie [^5]: "Geomagic Acquires Sensable 3D Design and Haptics Businesses," Business Wire, April 12, 2012. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20120412006078/en/Geomagic-Acquires-Sensable-3D-Design-and-Haptics-Businesses [^6]: Jonathan Allen and Raquel Coronell Uribe, "Trump's team launches group to unseat GOP Rep. Thomas Massie," NBC News, June 22, 2025. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-thomas-massie-criticism-us-strikes-iran-kentucky-maga-rcna214387 [^7]: H.R. 4405, 119th Congress, Epstein Files Transparency Act, as introduced July 15, 2025. https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/4405/text [^8]: "US representative files discharge petition to compel release of Epstein investigation documents," JURIST, September 5, 2025. https://www.jurist.org/news/2025/09/us-representative-files-discharge-petition-to-compel-release-of-epstein-investigation-documents/ ; "Epstein discharge petition secures final signature needed to force House vote on releasing files," CBS News, November 12, 2025. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/epstein-discharge-petition-final-signature-files-adelita-grijalva/ [^9]: Office of the Clerk, U.S. House of Representatives, Roll Call 289, H.R. 4405, November 18, 2025. https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2025289 ; Epstein Files Transparency Act, Pub. L. No. 119-38, 139 Stat. 656. https://www.congress.gov/119/plaws/publ38/PLAW-119publ38.pdf [^10]: United States v. Maxwell, No. 20 Cr. 330 (PAE) (S.D.N.Y.), motion of Reps. Massie and Khanna, ECF Nos. 837, 838 (January 13, 2026); Opinion and Order, ECF No. 844 (January 21, 2026). https://www.nysd.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/2026-01/Maxwell%2020cr330%20-%20Opinion%20%26%20Order%201.21.26.pdf [^11]: "Thomas Massie and Todd Blanche trade barbs over redactions in Epstein files," Washington Examiner, February 2026. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/house/4452272/thomas-massie-todd-blanche-redactions-epstein-files-les-wexner/ [^12]: Dareh Gregorian, "Justice Department releases names of 3 people the FBI once called Jeffrey Epstein 'co-conspirators,'" NBC News, February 10, 2026. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/doj-names-3-people-fbi-once-called-jeffrey-epstein-co-conspirators-rcna258335 [^13]: "Ro Khanna Reads Out Names of Six 'Powerful Men' in Epstein Files," The New Republic, February 10, 2026. https://newrepublic.com/post/206411/ro-khanna-reads-redacted-names-epstein-files-house-floor ; "Rep. Khanna names 6 men he says were redacted from Epstein files for 'no apparent reason'; DOJ says some had no Epstein ties," CBS News, February 10, 2026. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/massie-khanna-epstein-files-6-men/ [^14]: "Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem, 'Close Personal Friend' Of Epstein, Resigns As CEO Of DP World," Forbes, February 13, 2026. https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikestunson/2026/02/13/dubai-ceo-resigns-after-released-email-showed-epstein-thanking-him-for-torture-video/ ; "Emirati billionaire resigns as CEO of logistics firm following Epstein revelations," ABC News, February 13, 2026. https://abcnews.com/US/emirati-billionaire-resigns-ceo-logistics-firm-epstein-revelations/story?id=130136386 [^15]: Erin Kelly, "Bondi, Massie spar over Epstein files redactions," Spectrum News 1, February 11, 2026. https://spectrumnews1.com/ky/louisville/news/2026/02/11/bondi-massie-epstein-files- [^16]: Erin Kelly, "Massie seeks signatures to force vote on second Epstein files bill," Spectrum News 1, September 1, 2026. https://spectrumnews1.com/ky/louisville/news/2026/09/01/massie-discharge-petition-epstein [^17]: Federal Election Commission, OpenFEC data: MAGA KY (C00908723), registration and Schedule A receipts, 2026 cycle, through July 15, 2026; America 21 PAC (C00804690), Schedule A receipts, 2026 cycle; Protect Freedom Political Action Committee (C00657866), Schedule A receipts; Kentucky First PAC (C00918227), Schedule A receipts; Thomas Massie for Congress (C00509729), 2026 cycle totals through June 30, 2026. https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00908723/ ; https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00804690/ ; https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00657866/ ; https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00918227/ ; https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00509729/ [^18]: Joe Sonka, "A record-shattering $37M was spent on Kentucky's Massie-Gallrein race. Here's who funded it," Louisville Public Media, July 17, 2026. https://www.lpm.org/news/2026-07-17/a-record-shattering-37m-was-spent-on-kentuckys-massie-gallrein-race-heres-who-funded-it