It took almost a year for the Trump administration to settle on a non-interim NASA administrator.
Back in 2024, before he was even sworn in, president Donald Trump announced that billionaire tech founder and SpaceX space tourist Jared Isaacman would take the helm of the space agency — only to change his mind after months of bureaucratic chaos, poorly implemented budget cuts, and a major falling out with SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.
A year later, though, Trump came around again on Isaacman, who was finally confirmed by the Senate by a 67-to-30 vote on December 17, promising to bring an agency in crisis back on track.
The entrepreneur, who owns a point-of-sale payments company and has little in the way of traditional credentials or experience for the job, is unlikely to be a conventional NASA head.
Exactly how that will play out is hard to say at this point, but in the face of a chaotic morale environment at the agency, where staff have watched in frustrationas the agency’s operations have been thrown into disarray by the Trump administration, he’s clearly willing to try to deploy some unusual perks.
As NASA press secretary Bethany Stevens noted on Musk’s social media platform X-formerly-Twitter, Isaacman has offered to fly members of NASA’s workforce on his “privately-owned F-5 aircraft.”
“All costs associated with these flights are covered by the Administrator, with zero burden to the taxpayer,” Stevens promised. “If you are an accomplished NASA employee doing exceptional work, there will be opportunities ahead to take to the skies with the NASA administration.”
While possibly meant as a peace offering, it comes across as a bit tone-deaf given NASA’s current state. Congress is desperately trying to defend the agency’s future, staunchly opposing the White House’s proposed 2026 budget, which would deal NASA a devastating blow. Isaacman has yet to personally address the glaring issue.
The Trump administration has also been shutting entire buildings and over 100 labs at NASA’s iconic Goddard Space Flight Center, to the horror of current and former staffers.
In other words, joyrides on Isaacman’s privately-owned fighter jet might bring some sound and fury to staffers’ lives — but they’re already dealing with plenty of that in the workforce.
On a more optimistic note, Isaacman — whose net worth is estimated to be well north of $1 billion — also announced that he would be donating his $221,900 annual salary to Space Camp. That’s a far more meaningful offer that could realistically make a more tangible difference to “inspire the next generation to take an interest in STEM fields and contribute to the greatest adventure in human history,” per Stevens.
One thing’s for sure: Isaacmanis is inheriting a strange situation. Earlier this week, he accompanied the president’s son, Eric Trump, and his wife for a trip on board two fighter jets over NASA’s Kennedy Space Center — as staffers continue to reel from a chaotic year back on the ground, hoping that things won’t unravel even further.
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