The friendship and business ties between Shift4 CEO Jared Isaacman and billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk drew close scrutiny from Democratic senators during a hearing Wednesday on Isaacman’s nomination to head NASA.
Democrats grilled Isaacman on his connections to Musk, who has led an effort under Republican President Donald Trump to slash federal spending and remake the government. Musk, named head of the Department of Government Efficiency, owns the private space flight company SpaceX — which has contracts with the space agency Isaacman would lead — and the satellite internet company Starlink.
“Have you had any communication, emails, texts or calls with Elon Musk regarding how you plan to manage NASA since you were nominated?” Sen. Gary Peters, a Democrat from Michigan, asked Isaacman.“Not at all senator,” Isaacman responded.
When asked what steps he would take to ensure that Musk has no undue influence on NASA, Isaacman did not directly answer, but said his loyalty was to the nation.
Sen. Ed Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts, did not seem convinced.
“You have invested tens of millions of dollars in SpaceX,” Markey said later in the hearing during a particularly contentious exchange. “Your payments company, Shift4, has an ongoing global strategic partnership with Starlink, worth millions each year. You can understand why the public would be concerned about conflicts of interest here.”
The senator also referred to a Wall Street Journal article that said Musk guided changes at NASA through his relationship with Trump.
Isaacman demurred when asked if Musk was present at a late 2024 Mar-a-Lago Club resort meeting in which Trump — then the president-elect — asked the Shift4 founder to be NASA administrator.
“I was being interviewed by the [future] president of the United States,” he said, repeatedly, declining to say if Musk was in the room during the meeting.
Trump nominated Isaacman to lead NASA in early December.
Allentown, Pennsylvania-based Shift4 and Musk’s private space flight company SpaceX have been financially entangled for years.
Isaacman — who was the first civilian astronaut to perform a spacewalk — commanded and funded two space missions by SpaceX. And Shift4 committed to invest $27.5 million in SpaceX in 2021.
Isaacman owns about a 25% stake in Shift4, according to a Jan. 16 SEC filing. A company spokesperson declined to say Thursday if Shift4 still holds its SpaceX stake, or if Isaacman will sell his shares in Shift4 if he is confirmed.
NASA has also developed deep ties to Musk’s space flight company. SpaceX has been awarded $18 billion in federal contracts — including $13 billion in contracts with NASA — over the past decade, ABC News reported in February.
Isaacman, however, insisted those contracts would not affect the way he would run NASA if confirmed to the agency’s top post. “NASA is the customer,” he said. “They [SpaceX] work for us. Not the other way around.”
Shift4 President Taylor Lauber will become CEO if Isaacman is confirmed by the Senate, a Shift4 spokesperson said in an email.
