Jared Isaacman testifies throughout his affirmation listening to on Capitol Hill in early December.
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Anna Moneymaker/Getty Photographs
Billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman’s affirmation as the brand new head of NASA closes a turbulent chapter that started over a yr in the past.
The Senate voted 67-30 on Wednesday to verify Isaacman alongside bipartisan strains. All 30 senators who voted against him had been Democrats.
The 42-year-old e-commerce mogul has flown to house twice on personal missions — each in partnership with Elon Musk’s SpaceX — and in 2024 turned the primary civilian to stroll in house. Isaacman has no federal authorities expertise.
Isaacman was amongst President Trump’s first picks for his second administration: Trump announced his nomination in December 2024, effectively earlier than his inauguration, and formalized it after taking workplace in January.
“Jared’s ardour for House, astronaut expertise, unlocking the mysteries of the universe, and advancing the brand new House financial system, make him ideally suited to guide NASA right into a daring new Period,” Trump wrote on Fact Social on the time.
Isaacman made it so far as a three-hour Senate subcommittee hearing in April, the place he downplayed his connections to Musk however declined to reply when requested whether or not Musk was within the room when Trump supplied him the position. Isaacman additionally expressed help for lunar and Mars missions, saying he believed NASA had the funds to do each.
Whereas NASA is concentrated on its Artemis mission to return Americans to the moon for the primary time because the early Seventies, the second Trump administration has involved some with its seeming preoccupation with Mars exploration — a riskier and more divisive concept that simply so occurs to be a longtime dream of Trump’s onetime ally, Musk.
However Isaacman did not get the possibility to reply questions on any of that in entrance of the total Senate, as a result of Trump withdrew his nomination in late Could — the identical week Musk left his role within the administration.
Trump mentioned the choice adopted a “thorough review” of Isaacman’s “prior associations,” and later explicitly blamed his donations to Democratic causes. Public filings present that Isaacman has contributed to candidates and political motion committees of each events through the years, however since 2016 has supported extra Democrats.
Isaacman has described himself as “comparatively apolitical” and a “right-leaning reasonable,” and noted that his marketing campaign donations had been public lengthy earlier than Trump nominated him — suggesting that wasn’t the one motive for the reversal. In June, Isaacman mentioned being thought of to guide NASA was “really the consideration of a lifetime.”
“Even realizing the result, I’d do it once more,” Isaacman wrote in a letter to buyers.
And that is what ended up taking place — solely the second time, it labored.
Isaacman takes the helm at a turbulent time for NASA
In early November, Trump nominated Isaacman again, with out acknowledging the turmoil that had unfolded alongside the way in which.
At his confirmation hearing in early December, Isaacman as soon as once more denied that his connections to Musk posed a battle of curiosity. The nominee defined that his spaceflights had been operated by SpaceX as a result of the corporate is the one possibility for sending Individuals to house since NASA retired its house shuttle program in 2011.
“In that respect, my relationship [to Musk] is not any completely different than that of NASA,” he mentioned, including that “there are not any photos of us at dinner, at a bar, on an airplane, or on a yacht as a result of they do not exist.”
Isaacman takes the helm of an company that has been grappling with a scarcity of everlasting management, downsizing, aggressive strain (particularly from China) and significant funding cuts — with threats of extra to return.
The administration’s 2026 funds proposes a historic 24% cut to total NASA funding, which might slash its workforce by a few third and spell the tip of 41 science initiatives.
In latest months, protesters have descended on Capitol Hill to lobby against the proposed funds cuts. Amongst them was beloved “Science Guy” Bill Nye, the CEO of the nonprofit Planetary Society, who additionally attended Isaacman’s December listening to in a present of help for the nominee. The Home and Senate each reject the deepest proposed cuts, however differ in how a lot funding they suppose its science funds ought to get.
A 62-page draft agenda named “Venture Athena,” which Isaacman defended after it leaked in Could, affords clues as to how Isaacman seeks to run NASA: primarily, extra like a business.
Its priorities embrace reorganization “geared toward decreasing layers of paperwork,” placing extra astronauts in house extra typically, enjoying a bigger position in certifying business house missions and partnering with industries like biotech and pharma to “determine how you can extract extra worth from house than we put in.”
Jared Isaacman — pictured earlier than he led the primary all-civilian spaceflight in 2021 — has labored carefully with Elon Musk’s firm SpaceX.
Patrick T. Fallon/AFP by way of Getty Photographs
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Patrick T. Fallon/AFP by way of Getty Photographs
Isaacman’s background is in e-commerce and personal spaceflight
Isaacman traces his curiosity in house again to his childhood, when he was impressed by an image ebook in his faculty library.
“I informed my kindergarten trainer I used to be going to go to house sometime,” he recalled in 2021.
However first, he made it as an entrepreneur. He based the fee processing agency now often known as Shift4 Funds as a youngster out of his dad and mom’ New Jersey basement in 1991. The corporate, which went public in 2020, says it processes funds for 1 in 3 eating places and 40% of lodges throughout the U.S.
Isaacman dropped out of highschool to pursue his enterprise, however later earned his GED and a bachelor’s diploma in aeronautics from Embry‑Riddle Aeronautical College. He’s a licensed pilot with over 7,000 flight hours, in keeping with his Polaris bio.
He additionally co-founded a civilian aerobatic show group referred to as the Black Diamond Jet Workforce, in addition to Draken Worldwide, which gives tactical fighter plane to prospects together with the navy and protection industries. He offered a majority share of it to the funding agency Blackstone Group in 2019 for a reported nine-figure sum.
Forbes values Isaacman’s present internet price at $1.2 billion. That fortune has allowed him to pursue his astronaut ambitions, in addition to help STEM-related causes (he and his spouse have pledged to donate the vast majority of their wealth to charity).
Isaacman funded and commanded the primary all-civilian orbital flight in 2021 — which raised over $240 million for St. Jude Kids’s Analysis Hospital — in addition to the 2024 Polaris Dawn mission, during which he and crewmate Sarah Gillis turned the primary civilians to conduct a spacewalk.
Upon his return, Isaacman told NPR’s All Things Considered that whereas Earth appeared lovely from afar, “looking into the darkness of house, it was a really unwelcoming feeling that it is a threatening atmosphere for people.”
“We actually did not evolve to be right here, and if we need to be right here, we will need to work actually laborious with the intention to sort of open up this final frontier,” he added. “That was sort of one of many large takeaways I had.”
