President-elect Donald Trump has nominated high school dropout and self-made billionaire Jared Isaacman to run NASA. Again.
Trump announced in a Tuesday, Nov. 4 post on his social media site Truth Social that he was nominating Isaacman to serve as the administrator of the U.S. space agency due to his “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.”
Trump used the same description in December when he originally nominated Isaacman, a businessman and pilot who has orbited the planet but has no governmental experience. There was no mention of that this time, or that Trump withdrew the first nomination in May after Isaacman had already cleared the Senate Commerce Committee in April on the way to a full Senate vote.
Trump never gave a reason for his change of heart at the time but it came a day after SpaceX CEO and former Trump advisor Elon Musk left the White House during a tense public feud with Trump and hours after influential conservative activist Laura Loomer posted on X that “There is reason to believe that Isaacman may be facing retaliation because of his friendship with Musk.”
Other reports have suggested Isaacman’s past donations to Democrats may have influenced Trump’s decision, who said in a statement that “the next leader of NASA is in complete alignment with President Trump’s America First agenda.”
“Thank you, Mr. President @POTUS, for this opportunity,” Isaacman responded on X. “It will be an honor to serve my country under your leadership. I am also very grateful to @SecDuffy, who skillfully oversees @NASA alongside his many other responsibilities.”
Isaacman facing challenges with reduced NASA
NASA, which is preparing for a series of human moon missions, has lacked a full-time administrator since Bill Nelson stepped down on Jan. 20, the day of Trump’s inauguration. In July, Trump appointed Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy as acting administrator.
The agency previously had a workforce of about 18,000, but nearly 4,000 of them opted to leave under the Trump administration’s deferred resignation program, NPR reported in July.
NASA also faces budget cuts of nearly 25%, mostly in the agency’s science portfolio.
“These are the most exciting times since the dawn of the space age,” Isaacman said on X, “and I truly believe the future we have all been waiting for will soon become reality.”
Who is Jared Isaacman?
Jared Taylor Isaacman, 42, has been reaching for the stars in one way or another since high school in Bernards Township, New Jersey, where he and a friend created a company designing websites for local businesses.
He dropped out of school when he was 15, according to the Netflix docuseries “Countdown: Inspiration4 Mission to Space,” when one of their clients, a payment processor called Merchant Services Inc., needed full-time help with computer security. Isaacman got his GED and later earned a bachelor’s degree in professional aeronautics at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, worldwide campus.
While at MSI, Isaacman saw how cumbersome the process was for businesses to sign up to accept credit cards. He quit and started United Bank Card, later changed to Harbortouch, in his basement with a $10,000 loan from his grandfather, according to a 2020 profile in Forbes. With help from his father and his high school partner, Brendan Lauber, their simplified system was a success that led to expansion and the development of a touchscreen cash register “years before Square,” Isaacman said.
By 2020, Isaacman had bought the company where he started and six more process companies and expanded until the new company, Shift4 Payments, was handling payments for a third of the restaurants and hotels in the U.S. and the company was processing over $100 billion a year, Forbes reported.
When the COVID-19 pandemic shut everything down. Isaacman quickly pivoted to helping restaurants with contactless payments and gift cards and started a new service to help them switch to online orders.
How much is Jared Isaacman worth?
As of Nov. 5, Forbes lists Isaacman’s net worth at $1.2 billion, down from his pre-pandemic high of $2.3 billion.
Shift4 processes over $260 billion every year, according to its website.
Jared Isaacman’s interest in flight created new businesses
To avoid getting burned out, Isaacman started flying prop planes and worked his way up, putting in the hundreds of hours required to fly jets and getting a degree from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (worldwide). He gave the keynote speech for the Daytona Beach campus last year.
In 2009, he and two other crew members completed the fastest around-the-world flight in a light jet in 61 hours and 51 minutes on his second try (his first was held up in India), with funds raised going to the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
Isaacman continued, putting in more than 7,000 flight hours and qualifying to fly fighter jets. He formed an air show squadron called the Black Diamond Jet Team based out of Lakeland, Florida, with Sean Gustafson, formerly of the Thunderbirds, and other retired pilots to perform at NFL games and the Indianapolis 500.
In 2012, the two men took the idea of using retired pilots and founded Draken International, a Lakeland-based pilot training company that allows new pilots to be trained without keeping current pilots out of service to teach. Isaacman assembled 100 fighter jets, the world’s largest fleet of privately-owned military aircraft, from around the world. Draken has trained pilots for the U.S. military, the UK’s Royal Air Force, and some NATO countries.
In 2019, Isaacman sold Draken to private equity group Blackstone, took Shift4 public, and became a billionaire.
He had a higher goal in mind.
How many times has Isaacman been to space?
Isaacman has been to space twice, both private missions that he helped to fund. One of them included the first spacewalk performed by commercial astronauts.
In 2021, Isaacman funded and commanded Inspiration4, a three-day, all-civilian space mission on a SpaceX Dragon capsule. The crew of four non-professional astronauts including himself all went through rigorous training before the launch.
“I was expecting Earth to look pretty much like it did,” Isaacman said later in a talk at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach. “What I didn’t expect was the moon come around the sides and I was like, ‘Man, we have got to get back there. We’ve got to keep going.”
The mission raised some $240 million for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, and cost Isaacman an estimated $200 million. He commissioned three more missions in the Polaris Program he developed with SpaceX, including a crewed flight on Starship, the SpaceX vehicle that owner Elon Musk says will eventually take humans to the moon and Mars.
The first was Polaris Dawn, which launched in September 2024, sending the crew farther than any human had been in 52 years. The mission included health and science experiments, a SpaceX Starlink internet network test … and a spacewalk. Jared Isaacman ventured outside the spacecraft for 10 minutes and became the first private citizen to walk in space.
“We went farther into space than anyone’s gone in 50 years,” he told the Daytona Beach News-Journal in 2024. “It was an intense experience. I felt really, really fortunate to be there.”
“It looks like a perfect world,” he said from outside the capsule.
In May 2024, Isaacman gave the U.S. Space Force Historical Foundation the largest private donation in the organization’s 35-year history. The foundation has plans to convert Port Canaveral’s Exploration Tower into a public learning center featuring space exploration-themed exhibits, interactive technology and educational programs.
Is Jared Isaacman married?
Jared and Monica Isaacman have been married since 2012. They live in New Jersey with their two daughters, Mila and Liv.
Contributing: Rick Neale, FLORIDA TODAY
(This story was updated to add new information.)
This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Who is Jared Isaacman? Billionaire civilian astronaut once again Trump’s pick to lead NASA
Reporting by C. A. Bridges and Eric Lagatta, USA TODAY NETWORK – Florida / Florida Today
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