Musk Ally Isaacman Reacts To Trump’s Political Jabs, Says NASA Without A Confirmed Leader ‘Not Ideal For... America’

Jared Isaacman said on Monday that it is “not ideal” for NASA not to have a confirmed leader after U.S. President Donald Trump said that his nomination as the administrator of the space agency was inappropriate, considering his ties to SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.

Isaacman, the founder of fintech firm Shift4 Payments, said the real disappointment of the withdrawal of his nomination was the time lost by Senators and staff who invested six months into a confirmation process. As a result, the space agency will likely be without a permanent administrator for over a year. Janet Petro has been serving as the active NASA administrator since January.

“That is not ideal for the world’s most accomplished space agency — or for America — especially as our geopolitical rivals move at impressive speeds to overtake our edge in the high ground of space,” Isaacman wrote on X.

The abrupt withdrawal of Isaacman’s nomination was one of the first signs of a rift between Trump and Musk, who was the top donor of the Republican President’s 2024 election campaign.

Retail sentiment on Stocktwits about Rocket Lab, a SpaceX rival, was in the ‘bullish’ territory.

“Elon asked that one of his close friends run NASA and, while I thought his friend was very good, I was surprised to learn that he was a blue-blooded Democrat, who had never contributed to a Republican before,” Trump had posted on Truth Social on Sunday.

Public records have shown that Isaacman had donated to both parties, a fact the fintech executive pointed out in his post on X. During his confirmation hearings in the Senate, Isaacman said NASA would be able to carry out missions to the moon and Mars simultaneously. Musk and Trump have both previously expressed their desire to set up a human colony on the red planet.

Trump’s comments on Isaacman followed the latest spat between him and the Tesla CEO, which emerged after Musk said he would launch a new political party as an alternative to the “Democrat-Republican uniparty” after Congress passed the “Big Beautiful Bill.” Musk has dubbed it a “Debt Slavery” bill, reasoning that it would result in the most significant debt ceiling increase in history.

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