After donations from businessman Jared Isaacman to figures of the Democratic Party came to light, it was announced that the White House will withdraw his nomination as the new director of NASA.
As reported on Saturday by several American media outlets, including The New York Times.
Isaacman, a close collaborator of magnate Elon Musk, had been endorsed by a Senate committee and his appointment was ready to be evaluated in the plenary this week. However, President Donald Trump decided to remove him from the position after learning about the nominee’s financial ties to Democratic politicians.
Although the administration has not yet made the decision official, it comes just one day after Musk announced his formal departure from the Republican government.
At 42 years old, Jared Isaacman is the founder of Draken International, a company that provides aerial services to the military sector, and Shift4 Payments, a payment processor of which he is also the CEO. According to Forbes magazine, he has an estimated fortune of 1.3 billion dollars.
Last September, he made history as the first private astronaut to perform a spacewalk, successfully exiting SpaceX’s Dragon capsule at 700 kilometers above Earth. He also served as the commander of Polaris Dawn, the first mission of the Polaris program developed by Musk’s company, SpaceX.
Loss of ground for SpaceX
Isaacman’s departure from the confirmation process represents a setback for Elon Musk’s influence in the Trump administration. SpaceX, the billionaire’s aerospace company, has been the beneficiary of over $20 billion in federal contracts with NASA over the past decade. Among its functions are satellite launches and providing satellite communication services through Starlink, a technology used by the Department of Defense.
During his appearance before Congress, Isaacman had indicated his intention to redirect NASA’s agenda towards manned missions to Mars, instead of continuing with the plans for lunar exploration, a vision aligned with SpaceX’s strategic goals. With his departure, the future focus of the space agency could once again be in the hands of a more traditional vision.