Jared Isaacman: What went wrong at NASA | The All-In Interview

So I thank you for joining me today, Jared. I'm thrilled to be here to chat. And as someone who's been a space enthusiast since kindergarten, whether it's through the lens of commercial space or the great space race from the 1960s or NASA today, like these are all subjects I get pretty charged up about. So love to chat about it. What inspired you to get into space? You went to Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and you later became an entrepreneur but were you always kind of obsessed with space and did you always dream of doing what you got to do last year which was walk in space yeah so the this is all my parents fault they um they skimped out on a babysitter as a kid and just put me in front of the tv so uh i was watching movies like top gun uh the right stuff um space camp the movie you you know, 1980s movie where if you go to space camp, a robot's going to launch into space.

This was all stuff in like my elementary school years. So, um, I mean, I just showed it to my kids last week, by the way. So funny that you say that I pulled up space camp. I had to buy it because it's not on any of the streaming services to show it to my kids. Yeah. Okay. I've been to space camp to like speak to the students a number of times. And I asked them like, all right, raise your hands. If you've seen the movie space camp here and know who Jinx is and like no one raises their hands and that just goes to show i'm old so so you were always into it is is that what you wanted to do to work in aeronautical engineering or as a pilot or what were you thinking of doing yeah i mean so it kind of interesting start to the story i mean i um i started my day job which is shift for you know it's a it's pretty large fintech now when i was 16 and i was just like most you know as you know entrepreneurs you're you're burning yourself out waking up on the keyboard and, you know.

I said, I need a hobby in life. So I picked up my passion for flying. And I basically had parallel careers, you know, in aviation and in business. And I started flying air shows in 2010 and 2011. And I was flying with a bunch of really talented ex-military, even current military pilots. And they were like, you know, you could fly in the, you know, in the Air National Guard or the reserves. And I found out, well, wow, that's amazing. You can fly fighter jets part-time and serve the country. you need a college degree. I never had one because I started my business at 16. So that's actually why I went back to why I went back to school went to Emory Riddle, because it's a I mean, it's an aviation school. I think he graduates more Air Force pilots every year than the Air Force Academy. But anyway, that's ultimately why I got my degree. But my pursuits kind of in parallel of business and aviation has existed, you know, really, since I was a teenager.

So you're running this business. So shift forward, just for those who are listening, is a payment processing company that is a public company today, $8.5 billion market cap. So you've built an incredible business. And then on the side, my understanding is you've flown like 7,000 hours in fighter jets. And you've tried to beat the circumnavigation record a couple of times now. So were you kind of going to work and then on the weekends flying? I mean, how did you kind of balance running a company trying to do that today while balancing this podcast i can tell you it's really hard to do that and anything else it's like how did you how did you do that well i mean you know i again i started my business at 16 i started flying a couple years after that you know this is before you have a you know a family and other responsibilities so like literally all i was doing was working and flying mostly flying at night which was great you know i did that around the world record flight didn't get it in 08 broke it broke that record in 09 we did it to raise funds for make a wish foundation which was which was cool and it was a great challenge and then um later on started flying air shows which was great and you know we

did a lot to raise money for make a wish there and then we we kind of took uh the air show flying which was just maximum fun super adrenaline and was like we're doing loops and rolls to music you know 10 feet off the ground 18 inches between our wings we probably should pivot this to something that keeps the fun factor up, but has some commercial intent, also helps the country. So we started a defense company called Drakken. We wound up assembling the world's largest fleet of fighter jets, jets just like this behind me. And we were professional bad guys for the Department of Defense, the Air Force. We would fly as aggressors, just like in Top Gun, replicating Russian and Chinese, Iranian tactics. I mean, I remember at Christmas parties in 2014, 2014 2015 speaking to the to the workforce i was like i hope you all know next to commercial space and what elon's doing at spacex this is the second coolest company like we get to be professional bad guys all the time it was awesome so i again i've had two awesome parallel careers um but hey running two companies like nothing compared to elon i think i can't even he's got to be up to like a half a dozen ceo titles uh in parallel right now not to mention trying to save the

you know the country um you know uh and get it back on a good fiscal footing so it's my my responsibilities are pale in comparison well so when did you first meet elon and how did you meet him so it's interesting and i almost like guarantee you wouldn't uh remember it uh after well first i think like in early 2000s so i started my fintech in 1999 i actually think we were on like the same like uh old uh it was like a tv show being interviewed um in the early 2000s and we that was probably the first handshake it was after we set the uh we broke actually the uh I'm sorry, we didn't break the record. This was in 2008, the Around the World Record. We came up short.

Peter Diamandis, Dr. Diamandis, reached out and asked if I wanted to go to Baikonur and see a Soyuz launch with some of the kind of early commercial space pioneers. I remember, you know, all the Google founders were on that TU-154. you know, Russian transport. I'm like, man, if, if this thing goes down, you're, you're wiping out a lot of like, a lot of brainpower here. Cause Sergey Larry, Eric Schmidt was on it. And that, that was, um, it was coming back from that. I think there was a charity poker event or something at Elon's house. And, um, it was early days of, of Tesla. So I think I met him again there, but, but really we, you know, like we don't know each other that well. I've only spoken to him, uh, you know, a couple dozen times maybe over the years and almost entirely related to my commercial space missions, Inspiration4 and Polaristan. Oh, so you're not like super close with him because I think there's this narrative that you and Elon have a secret, you know, deep connection and he's one of your best friends. And, you know, that's kind of like how you're hearing when I look at some of the video clips of how some of the senators were treating you. They're like, oh, you're you're doing this all for Elon. He's your best friend. Yeah. You know, I think

almost every one of the senators on both sides of the aisle made that assumption and asked a lot of questions on that. And I said, look, Elon is one of the most accomplished, if not the most accomplished entrepreneur in modern history. Every one of his companies sets out to solve some of the greatest engineering problems for all humankind. Even his kind of super selfless service to the government of trying and getting us back on, again, like I said, sound fiscal footing. I admire a lot of what he does. But honestly, and I told the senators, my connection is I paid his company to go to space twice. And look, if there was more than just SpaceX out they're offering the service and you had competition, I probably would have paid less.

Like, so if anything, I'm very pro competition in this regard. And, you know, I don't consider myself beholden to Elon at all. I want to see all commercial space succeed. I mean,

dragon in 08 is that correct when did that how did that happen so it was it was right after i came back from that around the world flight and again i said you know dr diamanis reached out and uh we met in the city and he was like you seem to be like kind of thinking the way we think uh in in terms of you know a more exciting future and transportation and and aerospace now of course his interests cover everything from like human life extension to he likes to solve a lot of world problems too yeah and it was through those connections and coming out to Baikonur that I

did get that uh I did get that offer I saw the agreement it was funny I uh I showed it to some of the SpaceX folks when we were talking about Inspiration4 but yeah amazing yeah just knocked on the door every now and then and got lucky in 2020 um it was certainly through the approach of trying to be an investor but it it revisited old conversations and moved very quickly kind of funny that a banker called you from Citi and that led to you. Oh, I called the banker. You called the banker. I called the banker trying to get the contact, like a recent contact. And that's how it happened. You're like, hook me up, I want to get in.

That's crazy. Yeah. Okay, so then you said, hey, that was a successful mission. You had obviously a good relationship with SpaceX and the operations team there, I'm assuming. And you said, hey, I'd like to come back. And like Polaris Dawn was formed at that time or did that come together later? just for the audience. So last, was it September? You were the first private citizen in human history to perform a spacewalk, which, again, another incredible moment. And, you know, I think it was inspiring for people who realized at that moment that perhaps you didn't need to become an astronaut to be able to walk in space. I mean, it was really just incredible.

So let's get into that. How did the conversation lead to you becoming the nominee to administer NASA? Were you in conversations with Elon first? Is that how this kind of began for you? no so and and i think like that's another thing that i'm you know almost every senator wanted to ask is you know where you know weren't weren't you elon's guy in this like i i have no doubt i mean look he he he helped the president win the election he was in air force one marine one he was at mar-a-lago throughout the campaign i'm i'm sure he had inputs i was getting text messages from generals that i uh that i got to know when i built you know helped build that defense company, Drakken, that's where we flew all the fighter jets. And, you know, they were now positions of influence and said, would you like to serve in the administration? And it wasn't even just NASA. I mean, there were roles from Treasury to the Department, you know, to the Air Force. And I was like, I am honored to contribute anyway. You know, I've had, I've been, you know, relatively apolitical, but if I've had one political position that I've been pounding the table on since I was exposed to the defense industry at Drakken. It's the competitiveness

of the nation. And that's because I saw when we were replicating, you know, enemy tactics in 2015 in fighter jets, the gap between our capabilities and the bad guys was wide. And you felt very confident. And every year it started to shrink. And it's like, what is going on here? Why are we paralyzed? Why are we slowing down while the Chinese especially are moving wicked fast? And I've spoken out about it from time to time on where I think some of the problems are and over consolidation of the defense industry. So anyway, I was absolutely honored to have a chance to serve. I'm sure Elon contributed into the, you know, was supportive in it, but it wasn't a number of folks.

And I got a call from Howard Lutnick, who's leading the transition team, and he did a phone interview. And the next thing you know, like 40 hours later, I was at Mar-a-Lago. He said, hop on a plane, come out here. Having a lot of friends of mine who are serving in this administration, your story sounds familiar that folks that are close to this whole group that was sitting at Mar-a-Lago for several weeks and months after the election, I've heard a lot of similar stories that folks got calls saying, hey, would you like to consider something? and it was very open-ended it's like we've gotten to know you we trust you you're reliable but most importantly we're looking for folks that have experience and acumen in operating a business in understanding how to manage at scale and really have a similar sort of belief system i would say to the folks that that were stepping in to run this administration so i i do think what you're saying sounds like what i've heard it makes a lot of sense to me um so you then fly out to mar-a-lago what was that like oh man that was so cool i mean it just happened so suddenly and i i mean just you know kind of put together uh a quick plan uh at that point i knew it was consideration for

nasa administrator but i'll tell you in the days leading up to it i was hearing everything from being at the treasury department in various roles and to um you know again to the department of the air force but i knew it was nasa and i was like well i gotta i gotta come with a plan and uh and I, you know, put together a one pager for the president and it was a, it was a great interview. I mean, I never really met him in person. I shook his hand kind of once in passing, uh, 10 plus years earlier and the president was incredibly knowledgeable. Um, I was impressed. He knew a lot about the space program, which makes sense.

I mean, you know, he helped with commercial crew return operational capability to the U S with, with dragon, you know, a big push on the Artemis program, created the space force. He knew a lot. He knew a lot about China. We talked a lot about their Air Force, actually, which I thought was interesting. Some of my, you know, defense experience. And it was incredible. I mean, it was an hour plus long. And I came away with it feeling, you know, really good about the opportunity.

hearing on it's what we would have tried to concentrate on if i got the job there's a lot in there we should unpack i want to just get your perspective on the arc of nasa you know

So NASA's budget last year, $25 billion. Break it down for us. How is that money being spent? what are the dimensions upon which you would kind of categorize that budget and we'll talk about kind of what's going forward yeah i mean look i i think an incredibly large portion of it is with human spaceflight and uh and specifically uh the artemis program and sls and it's a lot of billions going to a disposable rocket it is billions that when you're talking so I mean, I think it's like five or six hundred percent overrun to build the mobile launcher to for the next generation SLS.

So sorry, just tell us what SLS is for the audience. That's the space launch system, I think, or it's they also call it the Senate launch system, I think. And it's spread across a lot of dollars are spread across some key states. Well, just to give you an idea. So SLS is just repurposed shuttle hardware. so uh and i don't blame anyone for putting us down this path because at the time you did not have blue origin or spacex or any of these other commercial companies doing the things that are doing today but they were like let's uh let's take the shuttle program parts and put it into a program called constellation and let's take the constellation parts and put it in a program called uh sls and and essentially again it's the it's it's it's it's it's the same shuttle motors it's the same solid rocket boosters you're basically taking the tank and putting orion on top of it Orion is 20 years old, by the way, it hasn't flown humans yet. And it's incredibly expensive and very disposable, but it creates a lot of jobs in certain states. And look, there's enough hardware now to fly a couple missions and make sure you beat China back to the moon, but you can't be stuck on this forever. This is literally the equivalency, by the way, of taking P-51 Mustangs

from World War II and using them in Desert Storm because we got to keep the plants open. And that obviously makes no no logical sense whatsoever for factories that are making this stuff that used to make landing ships in world war ii that made saturn rocket that pivoted to shuttle to sls and now to believe that you can't make another pivot is kind of crazy and the right thing you should pivot towards honestly is nuclear i want to just talk about the trump budget proposal for NASA. So this is the NASA budget over the history of NASA. NASA. And the proposed budget would basically create the lowest budget since 1961. So they're proposing to reduce the overall budget from $25 billion a year down to $19 billion a year.

Were you part of the conversation on building this budget? And then I'll highlight some of the features of this budget here in a moment. But did you have conversations with the administration as this was being put together and some of these proposals were being considered? I mean, how deep have you gone in this? No, you know, when you're a nominee, you're actually kept in the dark on a lot of things. You do get briefed on everything that's going on with every center, you know, every major program, things that senators could ask you about from a from like a one on one perspective, but you're not given access to sensitive information.

You almost need some deniability when you're talking to senators on that. or else your nominations could get held up really big time. So I wasn't aware. I honestly, I was voted out of committee, you know, the Commerce Committee by, you know, Senator Cruz and, you know, 18 other, it was 19 senators in total. And the next day, the skinny budget came out. And if that skinny budget had come out, you know, again, a day or two earlier, I would never have made it out of committee. Because obviously, as I think is playing out right now, both sides the aisle are not happy about the you know the budget okay so in this budget there's a proposal to cancel sls and orion terminate numerous robotic science missions including the mars sample return mission probes to venus and several future space telescopes and it represents the white house's desire to end the development of a nuclear thermal rocket engine i guess having scrutinize this budget, how do you react to what you see being proposed? And does it solve what

Sure. And why, yeah, why are we doing? Let's just say I am in the return to the moon camp. That doesn't mean like, you know, and I know that, you know, Elon is very focused on Mars and he has a lot of great reasons why, including just the survival of our species. I mean, long term, it is the right move. I remember during my hearing, one senator was really grilling me a lot of like, well, really, what's the difference between, you know, moon and Mars? And, you know, isn't moon the stepping stone? and I'm like, well, one's a planet, you know, and, you know, it has an atmosphere. And if you looked at the moon, it doesn't look pretty. I mean, it's getting beat up all the time. It has no protection from, you know, for solar radiation. So reality is like, you should go to the moon if it, because for 35 years, we said we were going to. And I think that's very important. You know, it's, it's, it's, it's very late in the game to say, well, we did it in the sixties and early seventies. You know, that would have been the fine position to state the entire time that we've.

done it and we're moving on. But we didn't. For 35 years, we said we're going back and we spent over 100 billion of taxpayer dollars saying we were going to do it. And for us not to be able to do it now and watch China do it, like I said, it signals a far greater disease across our government and how our system operates. And I don't think we want that reckoning. So look, we paid for the hardware anyway. Let's go back, but let's parallel going to Mars. So that's what Artemis is really about. I mean, you can say Artemis is about Mars too, but that's like 100 years down the line. And like I said, it's a giant disposable rocket program that repurposes shuttle hardware. It's incredibly expensive. We signed up a lot of international partners to support it because we like collecting flags. And it doesn't necessarily always mean that what they're contributing to is in the best interest of the program. Case in point, you know, we had, you know, gateway, man, like this is going down a rabbit hole of a lot of things because of the shortcomings of the vehicle, but it's expensive. It's disposable. It is not the way to do uh affordable repeatable efficient exploration whether it's to moon mars or anywhere else

so let's get it done and then focus on the on the right way to go about doing this so that we're not seeing people walk on the moon every five years or something crazy that it's happening all the time which is what we get excited about what is there to do on the moon why should we go back what is the purpose i think you know it's it's almost like a you know if you're going to go and commit yourself uh take risks in a in a conflict you know you want clear objectives and in my mind, again, aside from the fact that the hardware is already essentially purchased, it's clear objectives. Is there any economic, scientific, or national security reasons to be here? And I don't think we can say that conclusively right now that there are none.

And China is going. And if they were to find something, even a small probability, a 1%, let's just say hypothetically, it's helium-3, and they're going to usher in a new form of power. think about how many conflicts that we've had over the last century over uh over sources of power over energy do we want to get that one wrong and and are we willing to take a one percent chance and and that could shift the balance of power here on earth i don't think so and we said we were going to do it for 35 years and we and we spent 100 billion taxpayer money and like i said the hardware is there but i think you do it you make those determinations is there scientific economic or national security reason to be here and if not you move on and if companies like blue origin and spacex and even rocket lab are successful with their vehicles you're going to have like the optionality to go to the moon it's not the delta b is a negligible difference between whether you're going to the moon or mars and we should colonize mars we should build a colony on mars i think we need to go there um and by going there it is a it is the first step on a far grander journey you know and uh you know i i you know elon is obviously very passionate about it

occupy mars like he knows it's not the perfect destination there's nothing like you can you know it's unlike anything in in earth's history you know people say it's analogs to you know the explorers of the 1400s or putting people in like those shipping containers for six months and saying we know how to live on mars it's bullshit you know you could work your whole life on mars and you still live in a bubble you know so it's not like it's not going to be an easy way of life but it is a step in the right direction like our destiny is out and along the stars like we will inevitably learn something out there that's going to change our thinking, and it's going to create a craving for that knowledge, and we are going to want to continue to go out and explore and learn even more. Mars is the best first step on that journey. So let's talk about getting there and achieving some of the other missions that we might have as a country, as a species, and the relationship with private industry, Elon believes he can get payload into orbit for $10 per kilogram with the Starship platform, which is, call it, a roughly 100x reduction in cost.

Yeah. Maybe more. Maybe, depending on the point at which you're measuring it, maybe 1,000x reduction in cost. And that unlocks the potential to do these things.

Totally. So just to compare last week, Space Epoch, a Chinese rocket company completed its first sea recovery test. So much like we saw a few years ago with SpaceX, they had a vertical launch and they landed back in the ocean about 125 second flight. The key question a lot of folks are now asking, has China caught up? Is this a space race? Why does it matter? Because isn't space big enough for everyone? I mean, the space is the ultimate high ground and the high ground has mattered. You know, it's had tactical and strategic significance since like the beginning of humankind. It matters. I was grateful to have the opportunity to lead, you know, the peaceful

exploration of space, but it's not all peaceful. Like we can't be naive to the fact that it has been weaponized. And, you know, China leading in this domain makes a difference. There are things of scientific and economic and again, national security value out there. And we can't, we have to lead. We can't fall behind. If we fall behind, we may never catch up. So And I am concerned about that, you know, China moving closer to reusability. They launch the second most orbital rockets every year without reusability. You know, thank goodness for SpaceX, or we definitely be already behind in that regard.

So I am concerned about it. It honestly, it is a race. And like, yeah, the domain is vitally important. We can't fall behind. So that gives them the high ground with respect to weapon systems, with respect to observational platforms, sensors, et cetera.

said enough and i i guess you've seen the tweets from elon today where he was pretty negative about the house bill that is being labeled the big beautiful bill making the case that it's actually going to drive up a government deficit to over two trillion two and a half trillion dollars a year it doesn't make deep enough cuts there's a lot of pork in there a lot of wasteful spending in there and then the house speaker today responded to elon saying hey we've still got a rescission bill coming we've still got an appropriation bill coming where we're going to start to fix the budget, but clearly Elon is now getting vocal about his point of view on this. Have you spoken with him at all about what's going on and government spending and his kind of take on things as he's walked out of the office there? Well, you know, as you know, kind of mentioned, it's what I told the Senate too. Like I've only spoken to Elon, you know, I don't know, a couple dozen times, most of which related to human spaceflight missions. But when I was talking to him towards the end of last year, it was all on government efficiency related program.

And I think Elon got a lot of people excited about Doge by making like one simple point, the interest rate on the national debt exceeds, you know, the DOD budget. That's scary. And it's getting worse. And we can't spend our way out of this problem, which we've grown a habit to doing. And I know he's very passionate about it. And, you know, he sacrificed a lot along with all the others, you know, at Doge to try and bring about some significant, you know, spending cuts. and then you know to see a bill come in you know uh whatever 1200 pages or so that you know adds you know to the deficit i think was pretty you know pretty disheartening uh i suspect i mean i'm not i'm not um you know i'm not in this uh in this fight and i think like trying to codify like you know a handful of billions in cuts probably is you know a drop in the in the bucket so i can't imagine that's too exciting you think he's going to get more vocal i have no i i don't i wouldn't presume to know what goes on through his mind like i said i think he spends a lot of time trying to solve a lot of world's problems and a problem for this country and i think a lot of people agree with it is that the um you know that this national debt is just getting way out of hand i mean this

has been my case for about four years that if we don't fix this it eventually becomes an intractable death spiral and when that happens all of the wrangling we're doing over budget priorities programs interests jobs are no longer possible it's like you're trying to rearrange the deck chairs on the titanic you don't get the choice of what programs to fund when there is no funding and that's the unfortunate iceberg we're running into do you think doge is dead any point of view on that i mean it was interesting you know obviously there was kind of the grand exit uh this past week and then i don't know at least in my twitter feed i try and follow a lot of the cabinet secretaries you know they were all coming out and saying you know doge lit is alive and well embedded inside the you know i think it was more implying that like you know we're gonna clean house we're gonna take care of our own house as opposed to letting other people help us do it problem is like we haven't been very successful at that historically so i suspect going into the midterms people don't want to you know let the other side be pounding the table on doge so i i don't know i mean i look i've been an outsider nominee so i have no idea how to play out but i

i i think that some i imagine some people in the government want to see it go quietly in the night is there a deep state and does the deep states like is it too big to break you know i don't i don't i don't like know what i would classify a deep state or not like there are there are there is an absolutely bloated bureaucracy that uh hates change uh gets very entrenched that is happy to ride out uh political appointees like you know what you're gone in three four years or you know you're dead before you even arrive in my case uh we'll wait you out so i think there's some of that uh and then i think there's some of that in with actual you know, uh, politicians and political appointees that, um, uh, advocate like hell for the status quo. And some of it might be good intended because they're just afraid of what comes next.

And, you know, why, um, why take a risk when you've got something right now that supposedly works. And I ask like, you know, what, what if that, what if that comes at the competitiveness of the nation and our economic security, what if we get it wrong because you weren't willing to take some risk and, and make changes? Um, so I don't think they're necessarily all evil, by the way i just think some people get very comfortable in the status quo are you going to go back to space i um i don't know you know this is like the first time in 26 years that i've been you know really kind of out of work uh i'm sure i'm definitely going to go back and help shift for i won't ever rob my ceo of his well-deserved you know title now i'll probably be an exec chair or something. And, you know, I got to work, I got to have a mission. But I'll find something to contribute to. And man, I love flying and I love space. And I like the philanthropic efforts we've been doing with St. Jude. So, I'll keep busy. Amazing. Well, look, you've been, if nothing, Jared, an inspiration to many. I appreciate your commitment to service, your commitment to charity, your commitment to discovery. And I want to thank you for the time today. It's been really great

talking with you. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate having the opportunity to chat.