The aerospace community was caught off-guard this week by President Trump’s withdrawal of tech entrepreneur Jared Isaacman’s NASA nomination.
Announced days before the Senate’s likely confirmation of Isaacman, the withdrawal sparked a swirl of rumors and concerns, as budget cuts loom and NASA stretches into its sixth month without a leader.
Trump, in a social media post over the weekend, offered few details but said his decision was made after a “thorough review of prior associations.”
One space policy executive called the reasoning “complete bull----.”
“That’s like the worst excuse in the world,” said the executive, who was granted anonymity to speak freely about withdrawal.
Isaacman's nomination had already advanced through the Senate Commerce Committee in a 19-9 vote and was expected to hit the full floor this week. When reached for comment Wednesday, he told The Hill he is “grateful” for the support from the space community.
The White House also did not offer specifics, stirring further frustration. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt briefly addressed the decision in a briefing Tuesday, telling reporters Trump “wants to ensure all of his nominees are aligned fully with the America first mission of this administration.”
“I was frankly gobsmacked,” Mark Whittington, an author who studies space, politics and policy, told The Hill. “Jared Isaacman is well-regarded by just about everybody.”
While Isaacman — a billionaire entrepreneur and commercial astronaut — was not originally considered a contender for the role, observers said the aerospace community was largely open to his new perspective at the agency.
“People who follow the space program think he would be perfect for NASA administrator, and I can see no reason why this is happening,” Whittington said.
Rumors quickly circulated over the weekend that the decision might have something to do with Isaacman’s ally, Elon Musk, who stepped down from his role leading Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) last week.
Two sources close to the White House suggested Isaacman’s ties to Musk may have also contributed to his removal as the pick to lead NASA.
Musk, the sources said, rubbed many people in the administration the wrong way. And with his official departure from government, Isaacman lost a strong ally in the White House.
Isaacman worked alongside Musk at SpaceX to fund the company’s first private spacewalk, and he was one of four astronauts aboard the Polaris Dawn flight last year.
“Now six months of hard work later, just days short of a confirmation vote, and it’s all thrown away because he bought two flights to space from Elon Musk? Are you f---ing kidding me?” said one Republican space policy expert. “It looks like the Waste, Fraud and Abuse Caucus was bigger than we thought.”
Isaacman acknowledged the timing of the decision this week, telling the “All In” podcast he received a phone call Friday informing him the president decided to “go in a different direction.”
Friday marked Musk’s last day as a special government employee leading DOGE for the White House.
“It was a real bummer,” Isaacman said, adding, “It was certainly disappointing. But the president needs to have his person that he counts on to fulfill the agenda.”
“I’m not...play[ing] dumb on this. I had a pretty good idea,” he added. “I don’t think the timing was much of a coincidence that there were other changes going on the same day and it was obviously a little bit of a disappointment.”
Pressed on whether he was referring to Musk, Isaacman said, “Obviously there was more than one departure that was covered on that day.”
“There were some people that had some axes to grind, I guess, and I was a good visible target,” he continued, adding, “I just want to be overwhelmingly clear — I don’t fault the president at all.”
“I don’t blame an influential adviser coming in and saying, look, here’s the facts, and I think we should kill this guy and the president's got to make a call and move on,” he said, “I think that's exactly kind of how it went.”
Isaacman sidestepped questions over whether his nomination withdrawal was a “shot at Elon,” telling the “All In” podcast that people “can draw their own conclusions but I think the direction people are thinking on this seems to check out to me.”
Isaacman has given to Democrats during recent campaign cycles, including Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), a retired astronaut. But also donated to a few Republicans.
A White House official pointed The Hill to Isaacman’s donations in recent years to PACs linked to Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.), along with the hundreds of thousands of dollars he donated to other Democratic campaigns since 2010.
But various space observers emphasized that reports of these donations first circulated in January.
Six months later, they are frustrated the donations are abruptly being used against the tech entrepreneur.
“It was well-known that, like a lot of businessmen, he [Isaacman] donated to both parties and that came up in the vetting process...I’m sure that Trump knows about it or he should have known about,” Whittington told The Hill.
“All of a sudden, six months later, he says, ‘I’m shocked, shocked' that Jared Isaacman gave money to Democrats,” he added.
Isaacman echoed this, stating his donations were “not a new development,” and described himself as a moderate who is “right-leaning” and supportive of Trump’s agenda.
The space industry now anxiously awaits a new nominee; no name has emerged as a clear frontrunner.
The need to pass the “Trump loyalty test” could eliminate several good candidates, the first space policy executive suggested.
“I know you got to have partisan people in a lot of these agencies but for space, the community is generally bipartisan and more scientific or technical,” they told The Hill.
The process to push a new nominee through the Senate could take months, stoking alarm among observers over the steep potential NASA budget cuts.
Under Trump’s proposed 2026 budget, NASA’s funding would be cut by nearly 25 percent in what would be the largest single-year cut at the agency.
Musk expressed concerns over proposed funding cuts to NASA in April but said he could not participate in those conversations as SpaceX is a major federal contractor.
Space observers are concerned the cuts will pass through Congress with little opposition.
“When the budget needs to be mulled over and chewed over by Congress, they really need somebody at NASA to explain things to them,” Whittington explained.
“Otherwise, Congress is just going to do what it wants, and I think [it] really goes against the White House’s interest if they want to control space policy. This is a major blunder, whatever way you look at it.”
A spokesperson for NASA said the agency will "continue to relentlessly pursue" Trump's America First agenda under acting administrator Janet Petro.
"The @NASA workforce is committed to serve and eagerly awaits President Trump’s new nominee to head the agency, leading us toward our 'manifest destiny in the stars,'" NASA spokesperson Bethany Stevens wrote on X.
It comes amid an already tumultuous time at NASA as it faces workforce and infrastructure challenges as a result of both DOGE cuts and years-long budget declines.
“NASA lost its mojo, they don’t know how to solve complex, interdisciplinary problems efficiently, they don’t know how to put together the right teams to solve those problems, they lost the ability to do that,” said Charles Camarda, a retired NASA astronaut.
Camarda, who recently released a book on NASA’s culture challenges, explained NASA has lost its “research culture” over the years as funding continues to be cut for applied research.
“Right now, we are technically drained. We don’t have the expertise, and we’re not raising new researchers and engineering researchers,” he said.
Brett Samuels contributed reporting.
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