Senators press Jared Isaacman, Trump’s pick for NASA chief, on his ties to Elon Musk

Jared Isaacman, President Trump’s choice to lead NASA, keeps having to explain his ties to Elon Musk.

The topic came up repeatedly during Isaacman’s nomination hearing, which the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation held on April 9. Multiple Democratic senators pressed the 42-year-old billionaire on his relationship with the SpaceX chief, who was a prominent supporter of Trump’s campaign and is now a close adviser to the president.

For example, Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) asked Isaacman repeatedly if Musk was in the room at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida estate, late last year when Trump offered him the NASA job. Each time, Isaacman declined to answer directly, saying that he was in Florida to be interviewed by the president-elect.

Markey cited potential conflict-of-interest concerns to explain his line of questioning. Isaacman, the senator claimed, has “deep personal and financial ties” to Musk, who leads a company that competes for (and often gets) NASA launch contracts.

There certainly are, or at least were, financial ties between the two billionaires: Isaacman funded and commanded two pioneering astronaut missions with SpaceX — Inspiration4 in September 2021 and Polaris Dawn this past fall.

The questions about Musk didn’t stop when the hearing ended. Markey and several other Democratic senators asked Isaacman to provide further details about his relationship with Musk in their written “questions for the record,” which the Commerce Committee released on Thursday (April 24).

Markey, for instance, asked yet again about Musk’s presence at the Mar-a-Lago meeting with Trump. But Isaacman stuck to his guns, offering a similar indirect answer.

“My interview was with the President of the United States. The person asking me questions — and ultimately offering me the opportunity — was the President himself,” he wrote.

Markey also cited a March story in The Wall Street Journal, which reported that Musk called Isaacman late last year to discuss the potential NASA administrator role. Isaacman refuted that claim directly.

“Mr. Musk never called me to discuss becoming NASA Administrator,” he wrote. “The only call I received regarding this position came from [Commerce] Secretary Lutnick, who was serving as co-chair of the transition team. That phone interview ultimately led to my in-person meeting and interview with President Trump.”

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Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA), the committee’s ranking member, also asked Isaacman about his ties to the world’s richest man. “I understand you have a close relationship with Mr. Musk and his company, SpaceX,” she wrote.

But Isaacman disputed that characterization.

“My relationship with SpaceX is not unlike NASA’s, in that they are currently the only commercial provider offering crewed transportation to and from low Earth orbit,” he wrote. “I do not have a close personal relationship with Mr. Musk. While I’ve spoken with him occasionally over the years in my capacity as a SpaceX customer, I would describe our interactions as professional. I admire and respect his contributions to space and technology, but it would be inaccurate to characterize our relationship as close.”

Cantwell further asked Isaacman how his relationship with Musk and SpaceX “will not result in conflicts of interest or the appearance of conflicts.” Isaacman replied that he has disclosed all his financial relationships and is following all procedures laid out by government ethics officials.

“Pursuant to my ethics agreement, I have terminated all spaceflight service agreements that I had with SpaceX, and all money paid to SpaceX for future missions has been refunded,” he added.

Those refunds may apply to the final two flights of the Polaris Program, a series of crewed SpaceX missions organized and funded by Isaacman. (Polaris Dawn was the first of three planned Polaris flights.)

Isaacman further wrote that, if confirmed as NASA chief, he would resign from his posts at Shift4 Payments, the payment-processing company he founded and currently leads as CEO. This was in response to a question from Cantwell that noted that Shift4 “maintains a financial relationship” with Starlink, a SpaceX subsidiary that provides internet service via a satellite megaconstellation in low Earth orbit.

“I have no interest in personal gain or benefiting any contractor — I am here solely to serve my country and lead the world’s greatest space agency with integrity and transparency,” Isaacman wrote.

The “for the record” questions weren’t all about Musk, of course. Democratic and Republican senators asked Isaacman about a range of topics, from NASA’s Artemis moon program to the Trump administration’s apparent plan to slash NASA’s science budget by nearly half.

Isaacman doesn’t seem on board with a such a deep cut. “I have not reviewed or been party to any official discussions, but a ~50% reduction to NASA’s science budget does not appear to be an optimal outcome,” he wrote.

You can find the Democratic senators’ “questions for the record” here. The Republicans’ are here.

And there will be more action for Isaacman next week: On April 30, the Commerce Committee will vote on whether or not to report his nomination to the full Senate, a key step in the confirmation process.