Updated 6:45 p.m. Eastern with additional comment and background.
WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump has selected Jared Isaacman, a billionaire who has commanded two SpaceX commercial spaceflights, as his choice to be the next administrator of NASA.
Trump, in a post on Truth Social, the social media site he is affiliated with, said Dec. 4 that he selected Isaacman to be the next administrator of NASA. That nomination, once official, will require Senate confirmation.
“Jared will drive NASA’s mission of discovery and inspiration, paving the way for groundbreaking achievements in Space science, technology, and exploration,” Trump posted. “Jared’s passion for Space, astronaut experience, and dedication to pushing the boundaries of exploration, unlocking the mysteries of the universe, and advancing the new Space economy, make him ideally suited to lead NASA into a bold new Era.”
“I am honored to receive President Trump’s @realDonaldTrump nomination to serve as the next Administrator of NASA,” Isaacman stated in a post on X.
Isaacman, founder and chief executive of payment services company Shift4, is best known in space circles as the commander and funder of two private astronaut missions flown on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon: Inspiration4 in September 2021 and Polaris Dawn in September 2024. The former was the first private mission on Crew Dragon, while the latter set several records, including the highest altitude on a crewed mission since Apollo 17 in 1972 and first private spacewalk.
Isaacman has not been involved in politics before, and his name had not been widely circulated as a potential candidate to lead the space agency. In his X post, he said NASA would “passionately pursue” new possibilities he said that a new commercial space era can enable.
“I can confidently say this second space age has only just begun. Space holds unparalleled potential for breakthroughs in manufacturing, biotechnology, mining, and perhaps even pathways to new sources of energy,” he wrote. “There will inevitably be a thriving space economy—one that will create opportunities for countless people to live and work in space. At NASA, we will passionately pursue these possibilities and usher in an era where humanity becomes a true spacefaring civilization.”
Both the selection of Isaacman and the timing of the announcement took many by surprise. President administrations did not select their nominee for NASA administration until weeks to months after taking office. The first Trump administration, for example, did not nominate Jim Bridenstine to be administration until more than seven months after Trump’s inauguration.
The incoming administration also has not set up a transition team for NASA. In comments after a keynote at the Cislunar Security Conference Dec. 4, a couple hours before Trump’s announcement, NASA Associate Administrator Jim Free said that Trump’s agency review team—a group of staffers supporting the incoming administration to review NASA activities—had not arrived yet at the agency or had been named, but added the agency expected to at least learn who was on that team by the end of the week.
The selection of Isaacman had an immediate endorsement from one former agency official. “Congratulations – you are going to be terrific!” posted Lori Garver, who served as deputy administrator of NASA during the Obama administrator, in response to Isaacman’s statement.
Dave Cavossa, president of the Commercial Space Federation, also praised Isaacman’s selection. “CSF is ‘over the moon’ happy to hear of the nomination of fellow commercial space advocate and friend Jared Isaacman for NASA administrator,” he told SpaceNews. “At this critical time, as NASA and commercial space become inextricably linked toward the success of our nation’s space program and our continued global leadership in space, I cannot imagine a better candidate for this role.”
Isaacman on topics from government contracting to Hubble
The new Trump administration is expected to scrutinize NASA’s exploration programs, including its use of the Space Launch System and Orion for the Artemis lunar exploration campaign. Elon Musk, chief executive of SpaceX, has been advising Trump since the election, and hosted the president-elect at the most recent Starship launch Nov. 19.
Those close ties have led to speculation that the Trump administration may seek to revamp Artemis, in particular the use of SLS and Orion. For now, Free said during his speech at the conference before the announcement of Isaacman’s selection, there are no changes to the overall Artemis strategy.
“I know there’s a lot of talk about Starship. That may come in the future, but right now SLS is our vehicle and that’s what we’re going to launch humans on,” he said.
Isaacman, in an Oct. 18 post on X, endorsed an op-ed by Michael Bloomberg that was sharply critical of NASA’s implementation of Artemis, with the former mayor of New York calling it “a colossal waste of taxpayer money.”
“These points are not new, and I agree with most of them, but it’s great to have someone like Mike, with a loud voice, educating people on topics they may not be as familiar with,” Isaacman wrote. He blamed the problems with Artemis, along with broader issues in aerospace and defense contracting, on “excessive consolidation” among prime contractors.
He noted his opinion “is based on over a decade of experience as a founder and CEO of a defense aerospace company, witnessing firsthand how the big primes operate and seeing how it threatens the competitiveness of our nation.” He founded and led for several years Draken International, a company that operates military aircraft for training and research missions.
That experience, he said in another post Nov. 25, made him “optimistic” that the government efficiency committee that Musk is co-chairing will be successful in reforming defense programs and “fix the DoD contractors.”
He outlined a number of steps that he would take that, while intended to address defense companies and programs, may also apply to NASA. Those measures included demanding that companies “deliver more value or face consequence” and be willing to renegotiate or terminate contracts. He also called for more competition: “If necessary, break up the largest primes to foster a more competitive and innovative defense industry.”
Isaacman’s close ties to Musk, including being a customer for two private astronaut missions, will draw scrutiny. One Capitol Hill source, speaking on background, said that senators who will take up his nomination will likely seek details on those financial ties, which Isaacman has been reticent to disclose previously.
Isaacman also was critical in the past of NASA’s selection of Blue Origin of a second Human Landing System award to develop a crewed version of its Blue Moon lander after the agency originally picked SpaceX’s Starship. “Spend billions on lunar lander redundancy that you don’t have with SLS at the expense of dozens of scientific programs. I don’t like it,” he stated in March.
However, he has been complimentary of Blue Origin in other comments. “SpaceX will thrive on competition. I think Blue has a very committed founder that will invest heavily to ensure there are choices” in launch, he posted in October.
Before Trump announced his intent to nominate Isaacman to lead NASA, Isaacman’s closest links to the agency had been in a joint NASA-SpaceX study announced in 2022 to study a potential mission to reboost and potential repair the Hubble Space Telescope. Isaacman was part of the briefing to announce it and suggested that such a mission could be part of his Polaris program of private astronaut missions.
NASA, though, stated in June of this year that it would not pursue a private servicing mission of any kind to Hubble, concluding the risks of potential damage to Hubble outweighed the benefits.
Isaacman had lobbied for such a mission, claiming in November 2023 it was “an easy risk/reward decision” to fix the telescope at no cost to taxpayers. He cited, in that post and another in May, the NASA-SpaceX study. “The team that performed the technical analysis for ~6 months and arrived at a formal recommendation,” he wrote in May.
He did not disclose that recommendation and NASA has not released the study or a summary of it. A copy of a final presentation from the study, released under a Freedom of Information Act request, was nearly completely redacted, citing exemptions that protect commercial proprietary information and the “deliberative process privilege.”
