The US Senate has confirmed Jared Isaacman, a billionaire private astronaut and close associate of SpaceX founder Elon Musk, as the new head of NASA. The measure passed by a wide margin on Wednesday.
Isaacman, 42, financed and took part in two civilian crewed SpaceX flights, one of which featured a spacewalk. His close ties to Musk’s company come as NASA increasingly relies on SpaceX for a range of missions. Isaacman built his fortune by founding Shift4, a payment processing company that now handles billions of transactions each year.
His path to becoming NASA administrator has not been straightforward. US President Donald Trump first nominated Isaacman in December 2024, praising him as “an accomplished business leader, philanthropist, pilot, and astronaut.”
Trump withdrew the nomination in May amid his public feud with Musk. Posting on Truth Social in July, Trump accused Musk of going “completely off the rails” and becoming a “train wreck.” He claimed that Musk had asked “that one of his close friends run NASA,” which Trump described as “inappropriate.” Isaacman has made political donations to Democratic candidates in the past.
Trump renominated Isaacman in November, as his relationship with Musk began to thaw. During a Senate confirmation hearing in early December, Isaacman said he wanted to put US astronauts back on the moon before China and sought to portray himself as independent from Musk.
The confirmation comes as the US and China pursue rival space ambitions, including lunar missions and expanded satellite networks. China operates its own space station and carries out regular crewed flights, while the US relies heavily on commercial partners such as SpaceX and Blue Origin, and the International Space Station partnerships, including with Russia, following the retirement of NASA’s space shuttle program in 2011.
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