Commander Jared Isaacman of Polaris Dawn, a private human spaceflight mission, speaks at a press conference at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S. August 19, 2024.
President Donald Trump has met with Jared Isaacman to discuss another nomination to lead NASA, a source familiar with the talks confirmed to CNBC's Morgan Brennan.
Isaacman, who has close ties with SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, was at the White House in September for Trump's dinner for tech power players. Musk did not attend.
Trump and Isaacman have had multiple in-person meetings in recent weeks to talk about the Shift4 founder's vision for the space program, according to Bloomberg, citing a person familiar with the meetings.
After a fiery back-and-forth between Musk and Trump over government spending, the president pulled Isaacman's nomination for the post, saying he was a "blue blooded Democrat, who had never contributed to a Republican before."
"I also thought it inappropriate that a very close friend of Elon, who was in the Space Business, run NASA, when NASA is such a big part of Elon's corporate life," Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on June 6.
Trump named Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy interim head of NASA in July.
Isaacman, who declined to comment, was initially nominated in December to lead the space agency.
Isaacman is a seasoned space traveller, having led two private spaceflights with SpaceX in 2021 and 2024. Shift4 has invested $27.5 million in SpaceX, according to a 2021 filing.