Trump picks billionaire Jared Isaacman to head NASA

President-elect Donald Trump announced Wednesday that he plans to nominate billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman to lead NASA.

“Jared will advance 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 payment processing company Shift4. He has flown into space twice on commercial SpaceX missions, but has not worked at NASA or the federal government. Isaacman financed both space flights 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, to co-head a new “Department of Government Efficiency.”

In 2022, Isaacman partnered with Musk and SpaceX to fund and launch the Polaris program, a series of three private spaceflights to test technologies and maneuvers for exploration beyond Earth orbit. Isaacman was one of four private citizens sent into orbit on the first of these three space flights, known as Polaris Dawn.

The five-day mission, which took place in September, included the first all-civilian spacewalk.

Isaacman also funded SpaceX’s first all-civilian mission to orbit, flying in 2021.