Jared Isaacman is confirmed as NASA chief, a 12 months later : NPR

Billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman’s affirmation as the brand new head of NASA closes a turbulent chapter that started over a 12 months in the past.

The Senate voted 67-30 on Wednesday to verify Isaacman alongside bipartisan traces. All 30 senators who voted in opposition to him have been Democrats.

The 42-year-old e-commerce mogul has flown to area twice on personal missions — each in partnership with Elon Musk’s SpaceX — and in 2024 grew to become the primary civilian to stroll in area. Isaacman has no federal authorities expertise.

Isaacman was amongst President Trump’s first picks for his second administration: Trump introduced his nomination in December 2024, properly earlier than his inauguration, and formalized it after taking workplace in January.

“Jared’s ardour for Area, astronaut expertise, unlocking the mysteries of the universe, and advancing the brand new Area economic system, make him ideally suited to steer NASA right into a daring new Period,” Trump wrote on Reality Social on the time.

Isaacman made it so far as a three-hour Senate subcommittee listening to 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 provided him the position. Isaacman additionally expressed assist for lunar and Mars missions, saying he believed NASA had the price range to do each.

Whereas NASA is concentrated on its Artemis mission to return People to the moon for the primary time because the early Nineteen Seventies, the second Trump administration has involved some with its seeming preoccupation with Mars exploration — a riskier and extra divisive idea that simply so occurs to be a longtime dream of Trump’s onetime ally, Musk.

However Isaacman did not get the prospect to reply questions on any of that in entrance of the complete Senate, as a result of Trump withdrew his nomination in late Might — the identical week Musk left his position within the administration.

Trump mentioned the choice adopted a “thorough evaluation” 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 famous that his marketing campaign donations have been public lengthy earlier than Trump nominated him — suggesting that wasn’t the one purpose for the reversal. In June, Isaacman mentioned being thought-about to steer NASA was “really the distinction of a lifetime.”

“Even understanding the result, I’d do it another time,” Isaacman wrote in a letter to traders.

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 once more, with out acknowledging the turmoil that had unfolded alongside the way in which.

At his affirmation listening to 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 have been operated by SpaceX as a result of the corporate is the one choice for sending People to area since NASA retired its area shuttle program in 2011.

“In that respect, my relationship [to Musk] isn’t any completely different than that of NASA,” he mentioned, including that “there aren’t any footage 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 an absence of everlasting management, downsizing, aggressive strain (significantly from China) and vital funding cuts — with threats of extra to come back.

The administration’s 2026 price range proposes a historic 24% reduce to total NASA funding, which might slash its workforce by a couple of third and spell the tip of 41 science initiatives.

In current months, protesters have descended on Capitol Hill to foyer in opposition to the proposed price range cuts. Amongst them was beloved “Science Man” Invoice Nye, the CEO of the nonprofit Planetary Society, who additionally attended Isaacman’s December listening to in a present of assist for the nominee. The Home and Senate each reject the deepest proposed cuts, however differ in how a lot funding they suppose its science price range ought to get.

A 62-page draft agenda named “Venture Athena,” which Isaacman defended after it leaked in Might, provides clues as to how Isaacman seeks to run NASA: primarily, extra like a enterprise.

Its priorities embody reorganization “aimed toward decreasing layers of forms,” placing extra astronauts in area extra usually, enjoying a bigger position in certifying business area missions and partnering with industries like biotech and pharma to “work out how you can extract extra worth from area than we put in.”

Isaacman’s background is in e-commerce and personal spaceflight

Isaacman traces his curiosity in area again to his childhood, when he was impressed by an image guide in his faculty library.

“I advised my kindergarten trainer I used to be going to go to area sometime,” he recalled in 2021.

However first, he made it as an entrepreneur. He based the fee processing agency now generally known as Shift4 Funds as a teen 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 line with his Polaris bio.

He additionally co-founded a civilian aerobatic show group known as the Black Diamond Jet Group, in addition to Draken Worldwide, which supplies tactical fighter plane to clients 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 web price at $1.2 billion. That fortune has allowed him to pursue his astronaut ambitions, in addition to assist 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 Youngsters’s Analysis Hospital — in addition to the 2024 Polaris Daybreak mission, during which he and crewmate Sarah Gillis grew to become the primary civilians to conduct a spacewalk.

Upon his return, Isaacman advised NPR’s All Issues Thought-about that whereas Earth seemed lovely from afar, “looking into the darkness of area, it was a really unwelcoming feeling that this can be a threatening setting for people.”

“We definitely did not evolve to be right here, and if we wish to be right here, we’ll should work actually exhausting with a view to type of open up this final frontier,” he added. “That was type of one of many large takeaways I had.”