Trump picks billionaire Jared Isaacman to lead NASA
President-elect Donald Trump announced Wednesday that he plans to nominate billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman to lead NASA.
“Jared will drive NASA’s mission of discovery and inspiration, paving the way for groundbreaking achievements in Space science, technology, and exploration,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
Isaacman is the founder and CEO of the payment processing company Shift4. He has flown to space twice on commercial SpaceX missions, but has not worked at NASA or in the federal government. Isaacman funded both of those spaceflights himself, for an undisclosed sum.
Isaacman has close ties to Elon Musk, the billionaire CEO of Tesla and SpaceX. Trump chose Musk, a close ally of the president-elect’s, to co-lead a new “Department of Government Efficiency.”
Isaacman in 2022 partnered with Musk and SpaceX to pay for and launch the Polaris Program, a series of three private spaceflights to test technologies and maneuvers for exploration beyond Earth’s orbit. Isaacman was one of four private citizens sent into orbit on the first of that trio of spaceflights, known as Polaris Dawn.
The five-day mission, which occurred in September, included the first all-civilian spacewalk.
Isaacman also bankrolled and flew on SpaceX’s first all-civilian mission to orbit in 2021.