WASHINGTON, United States — The US Senate on Wednesday approved President Donald Trump’s re-nomination of billionaire Jared Isaacman to head NASA, following months of backtracking and uncertainty over the space agency’s future.
The 42-year-old Jewish businessman made his fortune in online payment processing and has a personal passion for space. He will take over as administrator of the US agency at a sensitive time — when it faces major budget cuts and pressure to travel to the Moon again and eventually reach Mars.
The Trump administration wants to send a manned US mission to the Moon as soon as possible to outpace similar plans by China.
During his second confirmation hearing in December, Isaacman pledged he would ensure the success of the Artemis lunar exploration program that began in 2017, during the first Trump administration.
“America will return to the Moon before our great rival, and we will establish an enduring presence to understand and realize the scientific, economic and national security value on the lunar surface,” Isaacman said.
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NASA’s Artemis program, however, has faced numerous delays, and experts warned in September that the lunar lander developed by Elon Musk’s SpaceX might not be ready in time.
Tech entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, commander of the maiden Polaris Dawn voyage on the SpaceX Falcon 9 spacecraft, arrives at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, August 19, 2024. (AP Photo/John Raoux)
Trump first nominated Isaacman after the president’s 2024 election victory, but withdrew the nomination in April 2025 amid a spat with Musk, before re-issuing it again in November.
Musk had lobbied for Isaacman to get the job. The back-and-forth reflected the president’s on-again, off-again relationship with the SpaceX founder, who has been skeptical of the goal of returning to the Moon.
While the Trump administration was open several months ago to revising the Artemis program in favor of Mars, this prospect now seems to be fading.
Isaacman has emphasized that returning to the Moon is now the priority.
The entrepreneur, a high school dropout, has flown twice with SpaceX, and in 2024 became the first private astronaut to perform a spacewalk.
Isaacman has not made his Jewish identity a major part of his public persona. Last year, he and his father, Don, who is on Shift4’s board, were among dozens of people on a gala committee for Chabad of Hunterdon County, the Hasidic movement’s outpost in their area of New Jersey.
This image made from a SpaceX video shows the start of the first private spacewalk led by tech billionaire Jared Isaacman, Sept. 12, 2024. (SpaceX via AP)
In 2021, when Isaacman became the first space tourist from US soil on the SpaceX Crew Dragon, the Jewish entrepreneur told CNN that he did not plan to observe Yom Kippur from space, which coincided with his launch.
Isaacman added that he’s “actually not a religious person,” though he acknowledged that he contributes to a synagogue in New Jersey.
In 2010, Isaacman donated the opportunity to be “Fighter Pilot for a Day” on one of his planes to a Chabad auction.
Isaacman would not be the first Jewish NASA director. Former US president George H.W. Bush selected Daniel S. Goldin, an engineer who had been active in the movement to free Soviet Jewry, to helm the organization in 1992.
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