The CEO and founder of Shift4 Jared Isaacman speaks on April 9 in an audition of confirmation of the Senate. Credit: Committee of the United States Senate for trade, science and transport
The Trump administration announced on Saturday 31 May that he would withdraw the appointment of the entrepreneur and private astronaut Jared Isaacman for the NASA director. The move came a few days before the Senate was planned to vote on his appointment, where it was expected to be confirmed. The Senate Committee for trade, science and transport advanced its appointment on April 30 with a vote of 19-9, with bipartisan support.
“The NASA administrator will help to conduct humanity in space and perform the bold mission of President Trump to plant the American flag on the planet Mars,” said Liz Huston, spokesman for the White House, Traffic lightwhich reported the retreat for the first time. “It is essential that NASA leader is in complete alignment with the first American agenda of President Trump and a replacement will be announced directly by President Trump.”
The White House did not publicly give a reason for the reversal. But second The New York TimesPresident Donald Trump had concern for Isaacman’s political loyalty. THE Times He reported that Trump has been informed of Isaacman’s donations to the Democrats in the last two cycles of the countryside, including Senator Mark Kelly (D-Ariz. And a former shuttle commander), the former Senator Bob Casey (D-Penn.) And the California Democratic Party.
Since it will probably take months to confirm a new candidate, the move leaves the NASA without a leader in a moment of agency turbulence, with its scientific division that faces huge 2026 budget cuts proposed by President Trump. The President’s balance sheet request, announced on May 2 and released yesterday in more detailed form, would have cut funding for NASA science almost halfway from $ 7.3 billion to $ 3.9 billion, canceling or closing dozens of missions and scientific initiatives.
Scientists and defense groups said that these cuts would have terrible consequences for the United States science. The planetary company warned of a “was dark” and an “event at the level of extinction” in response to previous relationships on the Trump budget. In a declaration of May 2, the American Astronomical Society said that the cuts proposed by the administration to scientific funding at NASA, the National Science Foundation and the Energy Department “will lead to the loss of American leadership in science”. Several members of the congress, which controls the appropriations, have promised to fight the reductions.
Isaacman had faced a check for his links with Elon Musk, whose 130 -day period as an employee of the special government that works with the United States Doge Office recently concluded, and Spacex, which contains key contracts with NASA, including the delivery of a lunar lander based on astronavians for the Crewed Artemis 3 mission. Isaacman was commander of two private missions of the scatial flight Spacex Rockets, including Polaris Dawn, where he became the first private astronaut to perform a space. During Isaacman’s confirmation hearing, he was pressed by the senator and markey (D-Mass).) On the fact that Musk was physically present when Isaacman met Trump at the end of 2024. Isaacman refused repeated opportunities to deny that Musk was in the room.
But Isaacman was also seen as someone who could help NASA restore some of the loan cuts proposed in the President’s budget request. In the answers written to the questions of senators following his confirmation hearing, Isaacman said that “a 50 % reduction in NASA’s scientific budget does not seem to be an optimal result” and that “it would support strong investments in space science … and to ensure funding as much as the government can reasonably allocate”. He also reiterated his support for the Space X-Ray Chandra telescope, which would have been closed pursuant to the budget of the president of 2026.
