Trump pulls Musk ally’s NASA Administrator nomination

Just 1 time aft Elon Musk’s public departure from his relation arsenic a White House employee, the Trump Administration pulled its nomination of Musk state Jared Isaacman to go the caller NASA Administrator. First reported earlier connected Saturday by Semafor, citing anonymous sources, the determination has been confirmed by White House spokesperson Liz Huston.

The New York Times reports, based connected 3 unnamed sources, that Trump “told associates helium intended to yank Mr. Isaacman’s information aft learning that helium had donated to salient Democrats,” including Arizona Senator Mark Kelly. Isaacman, the billionaire laminitis and CEO of a payments company, Shift4, has purchased respective spaceflights from Musk’s SpaceX. He flew connected the Inspiration4 ngo successful 2021, and again past twelvemonth on Polaris Dawn, completing the archetypal commercialized spacewalk.

As noted by Space.com, the White House besides released an in-depth mentation of its NASA fund request for 2026 connected Friday, proposing to chopped its backing by astir one-quarter, from $24.8 cardinal to $18.8 billion, with backing for subject programs dropping by 47 percent. In a connection released Friday, The Planetary Society called the fund justification “an extinction-level lawsuit for the abstraction agency’s astir productive, successful, and broadly supported activity: science,” that “wastes billions successful anterior payer concern and slams the brakes connected aboriginal exploration.”

Now, without Isaacman successful place, Ars Technica quotes an unnamed erstwhile elder NASA person who said the petition is “just a going-out-of-business mode.”

In a connection emailed to media outlets including NBC, Huston wrote, “It’s indispensable that the adjacent person of NASA is successful implicit alignment with President Trump’s America First docket and a replacement volition beryllium announced straight by President Trump soon.” Despite being incapable to corroborate to the Senate whether Musk had been a portion of his occupation interview, helium had appeared acceptable for an support ballot to regenerate erstwhile Florida Senator Bill Nelson. According to the NYT, Isaacman was informed of the determination connected Friday and declined to remark erstwhile reached by phone.