Who is Jared Isaacman, Trump's choice to lead Nasa?
Jared Isaacman
- Published
US President-elect Donald Trump has chosen billionaire and private astronaut Jared Isaacman to lead Nasa after he takes office in January.
Earlier this year, 41-year-old Isaacman became the first non-professional astronaut to walk in space. He bankrolled the Polaris Dawn mission that carried him on a rocket owned by SpaceX, the company of fellow Trump appointee Elon Musk.
Worth an estimated $1.9bn (£1.46bn), Isaacman made his fortune from payment processing company Shift4 Payments, which he founded in 1999 aged 16.
Trump highlighted Isaacman's business achievements, saying he would drive the American space agency's "mission of discovery and inspiration".
Isaacman said he was "passionate about America leading the most incredible adventure in human history", in a statement after the announcement.
The Nasa administrator role - which requires the confirmation of US Senate - would be Isaacman's first in politics, representing a departure from the last two men appointed to the job.
Isaacman has a longstanding interest in flying - having first taken pilot lessons in 2004 and later setting a world record for circumnavigating the world in a light jet.
As well as the Polaris Dawn mission, in 2021 Isaacman bankrolled and led the first private, all-civilian team to ever orbit the Earth.
That crew - named Inspiration4 - left on a SpaceX capsule from Florida and spent three days in space before splashing down successfully in the Atlantic Ocean.
Time magazine estimated that Isaacman paid $200m to Musk for all four seats aboard the SpaceX craft.
If confirmed for the Nasa job, Isaacman is expected to develop Nasa's use of private companies to boost its work.
Isaacman was born in Union, New Jersey. At 15, he dropped out of high school and later took a GED (a high-school equivalency exam), according to the Netflix docuseries Countdown: Inspiration4 Mission to Space.
"I was a horrible student," Isaacman said in the series. "And I wasn't, like, happy in school, either."
A year later, he launched his successful company Shift4 Payments from his parents’ basement, according to a report by Forbes.
The company now handles payments for a third of restaurants and hotels in the US, including big names like Hilton, Four Seasons, KFC and Arby’s; and processes over $260bn annually, according to its website.
Isaacman also founded Draken International in 2011, a defence firm that trains Air Force pilots and owns the world’s largest fleet of private military aircrafts.
In 2019, Isaacman sold a majority stake in the firm to Blackstone, a Wall Street firm, for a nine-figure sum, Forbes reported, launching himself into billionaire status.
Forbes dubbed him a "thrill seeker" in a 2020 profile. It said Isaacman "bullets the MiG (Soviet aircraft) faster than the speed of sound and climbs mountains to unwind from non-stop, intense 80-plus-hour weeks".
He also set a world speed record in 2009 for flying around the globe.
Isaacman is married, has two daughters and lives with his family in New Jersey.
Watch: Key moments from first non-professional spacewalk