Isaacman Confirmed as 15th NASA Administrator

The Senate confirmed Jared Isaacman as NASA’s 15th Administrator this afternoon by a vote of 67-30.  Isaacman’s path was more convoluted than usual with President Trump nominating him in January, withdrawing it in May, and reinstating it last month. He takes over an agency reeling from DOGE personnel cutbacks and amid widespread concerns about the future of the agency’s science portfolio, but the budget outlook is not as grim as it appeared just a few months ago.

Isaacman had the strong support of the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-CA), which oversees NASA. Although a number of Democrats on the committee and in the Senate overall are concerned about Isaacman’s ties to Elon Musk as well as his plans for NASA’s science programs, he cleared the Senate with a bipartisan vote: 51 Republicans, 15 Democrats and one Independent voted in favor; 29 Democrats and one Independent voted against. Two Republicans and one Democrat did not vote.

The 42-year-old billionaire entrepreneur is credited with a great deal of business acumen, but is still learning the ways of Washington politics. His refusal at both of his confirmation hearings on April 9 and December 3 to answer direct questions about whether Elon Musk was in the room at Mar-a-Lago in December 2024 when he was first interviewed by Trump cost him some Democratic support. Musk had recommended Isaacman, which some see as a conflict of interest since Musk’s company, SpaceX, is NASA’s second largest contractor.

Isaacman insists his relationship with Musk is strictly business, not personal. Isaacman paid for two commercial spaceflights on SpaceX Crew Dragons in 2021 and 2024 and the company he founded, Shift4, provides payment processing services for SpaceX’s Starlink satellites. Isaacman stepped down as CEO of Shift4 after he was initially nominated and told the Senate Commerce Committee at his December 3 hearing that he has “no direct or indirect equity exposure to any aerospace company including SpaceX” and will adhere to all ethics rules. He added there are no photos showing him with Musk “at dinner, at a bar, on an airplane or a yacht,” because they don’t exist.

He also raised concerns about his support for NASA’s science programs by suggesting in a lengthy paper he wrote, Project Athena, that he might get NASA out of the “taxpayer funded climate science business and leave it for academia to determine.” A 62-page version of the paper was leaked to the press in early November as Trump was making a final decision on who to nominate to lead NASA, presumably to hurt his chances. Isaacman said at the December hearing that he stands behind the paper, but it was several written months earlier and always intended to be revised as new information becomes available.

Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS), Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ), Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), and Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-CO) all questioned Isaacman at the hearing on his commitment to NASA’s Earth and space science programs. Isaacman said he considers the scientific side of NASA to be just as important as human spaceflight. Today Moran and Kim voted in favor of the nomination while Luján and Hickenlooper were no votes.

Although Isaacman may still be earning his political chops, he did manage what few (if any) have done in the past — convincing a President to reinstate a nomination only a few months later. Trump withdrew the original nomination on May 31 after a rift with Musk over the reconciliation bill, asserting he’d discovered Isaacman contributed to Democratic candidates. Coming back from that to being renominated in November is no small political feat.

At the December hearing, Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) asked Isaacman if it was true he’d contributed $2 million to Trump’s super PAC in the interim. Isaacman replied it shouldn’t be a surprise he’s a Republican (although previously he described himself as “relatively apolitical”) and during that time period “probably made 30 times that amount in donations to charitable causes.”

Isaacman has a lot of work to do as soon as he’s sworn in. To begin with, four astronauts are getting ready to launch to the Moon as soon as February. Artemis II will send astronauts around the Moon for the first time since the Apollo era. As a test flight they won’t go into orbit, much less land, but will fly a free-return trajectory that will bring them back to Earth even if the propulsion system doesn’t perform as planned.

Isaacman’s two spaceflights give him valuable personal experience and he proudly points out that on his second flight, Polaris Dawn, he and his crew flew further from Earth than anyone other than the Apollo crews — 1,400 kilometers (870 miles). The two women on his crew, Anna Menon and Sarah Gillis, both SpaceX employees at the time, currently hold the world record for the furthest distance flown by women. (Menon is now a NASA astronaut candidate.)

More broadly, NASA is coping with dramatic personnel reductions due to Musk’s DOGE efforts in the first part of the Trump Administration, with about 4,000 of the agency’s 17,500 employees taking buy-outs or early retirement.  Democratic members of the House and Senate are raising alarms about building closures and cutbacks at Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. Both of Maryland’s Senators, Sen. Angela Alsobrooks (D) and Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D), voted against Isaacman. Significant layoffs at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC) operated for NASA by the California Institute of Technology, are similarly raising concerns.  California’s Senators, Sen. Alex Padilla (D) and Sen. Adam Schiff (D) split on their votes, with Padilla no and Schiff yes.

On a somewhat brighter note, the drastic funding cuts proposed by the Trump Administration — a 24.3 percent cut to NASA overall including 47% to science — were largely rejected by the House and Senate Appropriations Committees.  Although final action on the FY2026 Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations bills is pending, Isaacman is looking at a better financial situation at least for now.

Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy, who has been dual-hatted as Acting NASA Administrator since July, was among those offering congratulations today.

Congratulations to Jared Isaacman on his confirmation as NASA Administrator. 🚀

It’s been an honor to help drive @POTUS’ vision for American leadership in space.

I wish Jared success as he begins his tenure and leads NASA as we go back to the Moon in 2028 and beat China.

— NASA Acting Administrator Sean Duffy (@SecDuffyNASA) December 17, 2025

Others include The Planetary Society, which has been leading a coalition of 20 groups warning about the impact of cutbacks on NASA’s space science programs. TPS said Isaacman has “the opportunity to stabilize and reinvigorate the U.S. space program” and it’s ready to work with him to maintain NASA “as the world leader in space science and exploration.”  The American Astronautical Society, the Satellite Industry Association (SIA), the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), and the Coalition for Deep Space Exploration were among others offering support.

 

This article has been updated.