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 payment processing company Shift4. He has flown to space twice on commercial SpaceX missions, but has not worked for NASA or the federal government. Isaacman financed both space flights himself, for an undisclosed amount.
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-lead a new Department of Government Efficiency.
Isaacman teamed up with Musk and SpaceX in 2022 to fund and launch the Polaris program, a series of three private space flights to test technologies and maneuvers for exploration beyond Earth’s orbit. Isaacman was one of four private citizens sent into orbit during the first of that trio of space flights, known as Polaris Dawn.
The five-day mission, which took place in September, included the first fully civilian spacewalk.
Isaacman also funded and flew on SpaceX’s first all-civilian mission to orbit in 2021.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
