Friday, December 19, 2025
Shift4’s Isaacman to head NASA
Merchant acquiring veteran Jared Isaacman was confirmed Dec. 17, 2025, as the 15th Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration by a vote of 67 to 30 in the U.S. Senate. Isaacman, funded and commanded the first all-civilian space flight, in 2021, in the process raising $250 million for the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, including $100 million of his own money.
Isaacman, a highly experienced pilot with thousands of flight hours under his belt, became the first civilian to take a walk in space in 2024.
From CEO to Executive Chairman to NASA
But even before he logged the first of those flights, Isaacman founded the merchant services company that today is known as Shift4 Payments.
Shift4 went public in June 2020 at an initial public offering price of $23.00; today the company’s stock trades at north of $64 a share.
Isaacman, in an interview with Forbes magazine, estimated that Shift4’s technology is used by about 40 percent of hotels in the United States.
Isaacman was CEO of Shift4 until June when he transitioned to Executive Chairman upon being nominated NASA Administrator. That nomination had been withdrawn, reportedly due to his ties to Elon Musk with whom President Trump had had a falling out. (Musk’s company SpaceX was behind both the Inspiration4 and Polaris Dawn space flights that Isaacman helmed.) President Trump nominated him again to head NASA in November.
From high school drop out to billionaire
Isaacman dropped out of high school in 1991 to start his first merchant services company, which was run from the basement of his parents’ house in Far Hills, N.J. He later earned a GED and a Bachelor of Science degree in professional aeronautics from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.
Isaacman founded a civilian aerobatic display team called the Black Diamond Jet Team. He is also the founder of Draken International, which provides fighter aircraft training for the U.S. military. He sold Draken to the investment firm Blackstone Group, according to published reports.
Isaacman is a mainstay of the Forbes list of the world’s wealthiest people. Forbes put his wealth at $1.5 billion this year.
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