Latest news with #JaredIsaacman
National Post
2 days ago
- Business
- National Post
Derek Burney: First serious crack in senior levels of Trump's administration
Article content A contributing factor to Musk's angst was Trump's decision to pull the nomination of Musk ally Jared Isaacman for NASA Administrator after 'a thorough review of prior associations.' Isaacman is a former commercial astronaut and founder and CEO of payment processing company Shift4 Payments. He is also an investor in Musk's SpaceX and led two private spaceflight missions. Trump expressed reservations about his ties to the Democratic party saying, 'And he happened to be a Democrat, like totally Democrat. And I say, you know, we won. We get certain privileges. And one of the privileges is we don't have to appoint a Democrat. NASA is very important.' Article content Musk's company SpaceX works closely with the U.S. government on contracts worth billions of dollars. Several agencies use its Falcon rockets, in-orbit space vehicles and Starlink, a network of more than 7,500 internet satellites. Musk's space firm is the only one regularly transporting astronauts to and from the International Space Station. It has $4 billion in contracts to develop its Starship vehicle for future astronaut visits to the moon. SpaceX also has close ties to U.S. Spy agencies and is a candidate for the president's 'Golden Dome' shield for America. Article content Article content An intense personal squabble could put much of this at risk with concomitant risks for U.S. space strategy where Musk is the clear leader in terms of achievements. While the row with Musk might make it more difficult for the Republicans to maintain control of Congress in 2026, it may help Trump win the internal Republican battle over the 'One Big Beautiful Bill.' Musk certainly has the money and the larger social network vehicle, but Trump controls political power in Washington. That means the conflict between the two super-egos is uneven. Under Trump, Washington has become inured to bombshell announcements on an almost daily, if not hourly, basis. But the dispute with Musk is the first serious crack in senior levels of the Trump Administration. Article content Trump is a consummate transactional leader who enjoys making deals. He offered Musk what he believed was a mutually favourable transaction. Support my policies, and I will support your access and influence. Trump and Musk fell out because Trump just doesn't get principled people. Musk rejected the linkage, because that would have violated his principal concern about rising deficits. His reputation is based on deeds, not deals. Article content Article content Cooler heads may yet prevail, but neither individual gives ground easily. Musk did apologize for some of his remarks, and supported the Administration's efforts to suppress riots in Los Angeles. Trump decided to move on to bigger problems — the L.A. riots, Iran, his tariff agenda and the Russian-Ukraine imbroglio. Article content
Bloomberg
3 days ago
- Politics
- Bloomberg
New NASA Boss May Not Take Over Till Next Year, Acting Head Says
NASA might be without a new administrator until early 2026, according to the acting head of the agency, casting doubts on the direction of the US space program after President Donald Trump last month pulled the nomination of Elon Musk's ally, Jared Isaacman. The earliest a new nominee could start the job might be in October but the process could last into March, Janet Petro, NASA's acting administrator, said on Tuesday in an interview.
Daily Mail
10-06-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE The 'con' that Trump never saw coming as Elon 'crosses the Rubicon'
When Elon Musk spectacularly torched his relationship with Donald Trump, it seemed the Big, Beautiful Bill was to blame. But privately his issues with the president ran deeper than concerns over the ballooning public debt. He was pushed to the brink when his NASA nominee, billionaire payments entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, was axed by Trump in a late-night Truth Social post. Until then, Musk's criticisms of the president had been confined to relatively measured arguments against the deficit. On Tuesday, he branded the bill a 'disgusting abomination.' Then he went nuclear on Thursday, invoking the Epstein files and calling for Trump's impeachment. 'Elon crossed the Rubicon,' Steve Bannon told the Daily Mail. The MAGA big beast has been stoking tensions between Trump and Musk for months. Now, he triumphantly declares that Isaacman - who was once sued by Trump's Taj Mahal casino - is a 'f***ing liberal' who helped collapse the house of cards. While Musk made waves at DOGE, his deeper ambition lay with NASA - and his dream of colonizing Mars. SpaceX currently holds around $22 billion in government contracts, with potential payouts rising to nearly $90 billion. Isaacman was widely viewed as the candidate who would cement Musk's bold plans for deep space travel. The self-styled 'commercial astronaut' bankrolled and flew on two SpaceX missions - the first all-civilian orbital flight in 2021, and the first private spacewalk in 2024. He is financially bound to SpaceX, reporting more than $5 million in capital gains from its shares in a recent filing. His company, Shift4 Payments, also does business with Musk's. Before launching into space, Isaacman explored a different galaxy entirely: Atlantic City. By his mid-20s, the payments whiz-kid had money to burn - and under the neon constellations of the Boardwalk, he had his first brush with Trump. In 2009, the Trump Taj Mahal sued Isaacman over four bad checks totaling $1 million. The case settled in 2011 for $650,000. Other lawsuits followed. Trump Plaza on the Boardwalk also sued him. Mohegan Sun in Connecticut alleged he had written four bad checks totaling $1 million. That case was eventually resolved and withdrawn, court records show. In 2010, he was arrested at the Canada border on fraud charges. In a press release titled, 'Nevada Fugitive Captured', US Customs and Border Protection announced it had arrested Isaacman at the Washington state line. Isaacman told Congress that the arrest stemmed from a dispute with the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas over a travel reimbursement. The matter was resolved within 24 hours and charges were dismissed. The court records were sealed. In a written question submitted after his April 9 nomination hearing, Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell asked Isaacman about the arrest and four casino lawsuits between 2008 and 2010. 'In my early 20s, I was fortunate to experience business success at a young age, and I spent time in casinos as an immature hobby,' Isaacman answered. 'The legal matters referenced were, in fact, forms of negotiation and were all resolved promptly.' Isaacman assured senators his gambling days were behind him. Yet, while orbiting the Earth in a Musk-made capsule in 2021, he placed the first ever sports bet from space. 'He's nothing but a conman,' Bannon said. It is unclear whether Trump was aware of his own previous court battle against Isaacman. But the White House said it was Isaacman's loyalty to the president that was in question. Since 2009, Isaacman has donated $272,000 to Democratic candidates, PACs, and organizations. In the same period, he gave $8,500 to the Republican Party. It was previously reported that these donations had been disclosed during the presidential transition in 2024 and that Isaacman discussed them with Trump in a meeting weeks after the election. But Bannon said that the president had only been made aware recently that Isaacman funneled cash to 'the most Trump-hating Democrats.' Another White House insider said that donations to the likes of Chuck Schumer and Josh Shapiro, including a raft of payments to Democrats in the last election cycle, would be unconscionable to Trump. 'This isn't like Howard Lutnick, who donated a few thousand dollars to Schumer, he's a New York businessman,' she said. In contrast to Lutnick's pragmatic offerings to Schumer, Isaacman bestowed $100,000 upon the senator in 2021. She said there was 'no way Trump would have allowed Isaacman's confirmation if he'd known.' Sergio Gor, a baby-faced Maltese immigrant who serves as one of Trump's most loyal henchman, gleefully brought the incriminating evidence to the president after clashing with Musk for months. The timing was aimed for maximum humiliation. Trump was handed the dossier on Isaacman just moments before a televised send-off for Musk in the Oval Office. The president tempered his rage through the farewell but when the press were gone, he confronted the SpaceX boss. He began reading some of the donations aloud, shaking his head. 'This is not good,' Trump told him. The world's richest man begged the world's most powerful to reconsider. But the president, by now growing suspicious of the deficit hawk DOGE chief, wouldn't hear it. 'I don't care, this guy is gone,' Trump said. Some in Musk's circle have tried to cast Gor as the scapegoat for the presidential bromance break-up. But Bannon warned that blaming Trump's loyal aide would backfire. 'Sergio is bulletproof,' he said. Isaacman said he was blindsided when Trump pulled his nomination. 'I got a call Friday of last week [May 30] that the president decided to go in a different direction,' he said on the All-In podcast on Thursday. Isaacman heavily implied that his ties to Musk were to blame. 'There were some people that had some axes to grind, I guess, and I was a good, visible target,' he said, adding that 'the timing was no coincidence.' Isaacman's nomination was publicly rescinded on May 31, three days after Musk officially departed from his role as head of DOGE. Trump pointedly addressed the decision during an Oval Office meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz last Thursday as Musk's attacks on X spiraled out of control. 'I didn't think it was appropriate,' Trump told reporters. 'He happened to be a Democrat, like, totally Democrat. And I say, you know, look, we won. We get certain privileges. And one of the privileges is we don't have to appoint a Democrat. NASA is very important.' Isaacman dismissed that explanation. He noted the donations had already been disclosed to the Senate months earlier. Instead, he suggested he was knifed. An 'influential adviser came in and said "Look, here's the facts, I think we should kill this guy"', he said. 'I don't fault the president at all,' he added. 'He's got to make a thousand decisions a day with seconds of information.'
Yahoo
09-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
F-22s Fly Alongside MiGs To Commemorate Founder Of America's Secret Soviet Fighter Squadron
Newly released footage records the unique formation flight over Nevada's Nellis Air Force Base last November, which brought together U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptor stealth fighters and Soviet-era MiG-21 and MiG-29 jets. The four-ship took to the skies to mark the passing of Col. Gail Peck (ret.), the former commander of the legendary 4477th Test and Evaluation Squadron 'Red Eagles' that conducted highly classified missions using Soviet combat jets in the late 1970s and 1980s. If you need a I do..I just found out we can share this from last year. A memorial flyover for Col. 'Evil' Peck, first commander of the secretive Red Eagles. Mig-21 leading, I was flying the Mig-29 along w/F-22s. You will never see a formation like this again. — Jared Isaacman (@rookisaacman) June 8, 2025 The video in question was shared on the social media platform X by Jared Isaacman, the former CEO of the red air provider Draken International, a tech billionaire, astronaut, and, until very recently, the White House's nominee to be the next administrator of NASA. For the formation flight, Isaacman was at the controls of his MiG-29UB Fulcrum-B personal jet that once belonged to Paul Allen, and which served as the photo ship for the air-to-air sequence seen above. The memorial flyover on November 7, 2024, involved a pair of F-22s, one with the 'OT' tail code of the 422nd Test and Evaluation Squadron and one with the 'WA' code of the 433rd Weapons Squadron, both resident at Nellis. Nellis is home to some of the Air Force's premier test and evaluation and research and development units, including the 53rd Test and Evaluation Group and the 57th Wing, to which these squadrons respectively belong. As well as Isaacman's two-seat MiG-29UB, the formation included another privately owned MiG. This was the two-seat MiG-21UM Mongol-B with the registration N317DM, a former Polish Air Force example that was once owned by another red air contractor, Air USA. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Ben (@benm1013photo) The special formation recognized the exceptional contribution made to the Air Force by Peck, who passed away last October 10. In 1962, Peck graduated from the Air Force Academy at the top of his class and then served as an instructor pilot on the T-33 and T-38. He also flew 163 combat missions in Vietnam as an F-4D Phantom pilot. Starting in 1975, Peck embarked on his (then) highly classified career under the Constant Peg program, in which he had a highly influential role. This program provided training for Air Force, Navy, and Marine fighter aircrews, putting them up against actual Soviet jets as part of a secretive advanced joint program. Prior to Constant Peg, the Air Force was conducting more limited aggressor training with Soviet-origin fighters, including Have Drill, which pitted American aviators against an ex-Syrian MiG-17 captured in Israel, and Have Doughnut, involving a former Iraqi Air Force MiG-21 that the Israelis had acquired from a defecting pilot, an episode you can read more about here. Peck, however, thought there was room for improvement. 'I was in General [Hoyt S.] Vandenberg's office [at the Pentagon] one day trying to get him to sign one of these test plans, and he says 'You know, I hate this,'' Peck recounted. 'You guys have to go through the pain of writing a test plan. We oughtta just be training with these airplanes.' Meanwhile, as part of his cover for this task, Peck managed exercise Red Flag and other air combat exercises out of Nellis. Under Constant Peg (the 'Peg' in the project name was Peck's wife), the 4477th Test and Evaluation Flight, the 'Red Eagles,' was stood up at Nellis in 1977. Two years later, the unit moved to the enigmatic Tonopah Test Range Airport, north of Nellis, with Peck now installed as commander. 'The whole idea of building an airfield was an overwhelming challenge,' Peck later recalled. 'I got to thinking about it, and so I pulled out a ballpoint pen and a napkin off the airliner, and I sketched out a little drawing of extending the runway and putting a pad there for three hangars and stuff like that. And I'd convinced myself that Tonopah was the right place for this project.' According to an official Air Force biography, 'Constant Peg resulted in the enhancement of an airfield at the Tonopah Test Range and the initiation of jet fighter operations from that airfield with the 4477th Test and Evaluation Flight flying both MiG-17s and MiG-21s. The purpose of Constant Peg was to train Air Force and Navy fighter pilots to a degree of proficiency never before achieved.' Peck, as callsign 'Bandit 1,' instructed on the MiG-17, and later the MiG-21 and F-5E, with the 'Red Eagles' meanwhile transforming from a flight to a squadron. Peck features heavily in this documentary, titled Red Eagles — Constant Peg, 1977–1988, which first appeared on social media accounts linked to Nellis Air Force Base in 2019: After moving on from the 4477th, Peck served as an operational F-15 pilot and commander at Kadena Air Base in Japan and flew RF-4C reconnaissance jets at Zweibruecken Air Base in West Germany. After retiring from active-duty service in 1988, he was an academic instructor for F-15 and F-22 pilots at the Weapons School at Nellis. All in all, Peck's career was a remarkable one and was hugely influential in terms of Foreign Materiel Exploitation, or FME, a service that the latest incarnation of the Red Eagles continues to provide. With that in mind, while we may never again see a formation of F-22s and MiGs in public over Nellis, covert flights using actual foreign airframes continue to this day. Contact the author: thomas@
Fox News
08-06-2025
- Business
- Fox News
Trump admin sets the record straight on reports of Musk 'body-checking' Treasury Secretary at White House
The Washington Post reported after speaking with Steve Bannon that Elon Musk aggressively "body-checked" Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent at the White House earlier this year, highlighting flared tensions between the tech billionaire and members of the Trump administration. The report stated that Musk and Bessent had entered the Oval Office in April to express their preferences for acting IRS commissioner. After Trump sided with Bessent's choice and the two men exited the Oval Office, they were said to have exchanged insults and, at one point, Musk allegedly rammed his shoulder into Bessent's ribcage and Bessent hit him back, Bannon said, informing the outlet that the information had been shared with him. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt addressed the report on this week's "Sunday Morning Futures," telling Fox News' Maria Bartiroimo that the incident was less dramatic than many assumed. "I certainly wouldn't describe it as a fistfight. It was definitely a disagreement," she shared. "Although I was not there, I didn't witness it with my own eyes. I heard about it through secondhand reporting. But again, we've moved on from that. The president has moved on from it, and the entire administration is focusing on passing this [big beautiful] bill." The former DOGE cost-cutter is allegedly discontent over the president pulling the nomination of his ally and longtime Democratic donor Jared Isaacman to run NASA, as well as Trump's big, beautiful bill, which does not solve the deficit or include subsidies for electric vehicles. The bill caused some contention from Musk and within the GOP, with some lawmakers, including Sens. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and Rand Paul, R-Ky., unwilling to vote "yes." Musk lambasted the bill as a "pork-filled," "disgusting abomination" with a public attack on X last week, writing, "Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it." Leavitt cited a previous assertion that "healthy disagreements" have occurred between Trump's cabinet members and the former DOGE leader, adding that the team was still able to come together for the good of the American people despite the friction. "You saw when President Trump graciously sent Elon Musk back to his companies, Secretary Bessent was there in the Oval Office, along with Secretary Lutnick and Stephen Miller. I was there, the chief of staff was there, and we were all hoping for the best for Elon," she said. The press secretary also sounded off on a recent tweet from ABC News correspondent Terry Moran, who drew ire from the White House on Sunday after tweeting a rant against deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller and President Trump in a now-deleted social media post, in which he called them both "world-class" haters. "This is, again, coming from someone who is supposed to be an unbiased and professional journalist. This is unacceptable and unhinged rhetoric coming from somebody who works at a major television network," Leavitt said. An ABC spokesperson told Fox News Digital in a statement that the outlet stands for "objectivity and impartiality in its news coverage and does not condone subjective personal attacks on others." "The post does not reflect the views of ABC News and violated our standards — as a result, Terry Moran has been suspended pending further evaluation," the statement continued.
