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Jared Isaacman was nominated by President Trump to become the 15th administrator of NASA in December. He
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passed out of the Senate committee in May and was set to be confirmed by the full Senate this week. However, on
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Friday, President Trump withdrew his nomination for Isaacman. We asked Jared to sit down with us for a conversation.
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We dive into everything. his experiences as a successful entrepreneur, fighter jet pilot, commander of the world's
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first all civilian space flight and the first civilian to conduct a spacew walk.
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What he saw in his six months studying NASA. How American government bureaucracy has eroded its performance
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and puts the nation at risk in the great space race underway with China. And what
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really happened? Was it a discovery about prior donations to Democratic candidates or an association with Elon
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Musk that lost him the nomination? Here's my conversation with Jared Isaacman. All right, besties. I think that was
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another epic discussion. People love the interviews. I could hear him talk for hours. Absolutely. We crushed your
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questions in a minute. We are giving people ground truth data to underwrite your own opinion. What do you guys
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think? That was fun. That was great. Jared, welcome. I, like many space enthusiasts, was thrilled for your
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nomination to lead NASA as the 15th administrator of the agency. Founded in 1958, the year after the Russians put
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Sputnik into orbit, NASA's perhaps, in my opinion, the US government's most pioneering agency, having organized and
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led our exploration missions to the moon, Mars, the outer solar system, and beyond, as well as the launch of
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important scientific missions to observe the Earth, to observe our solar system,
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and the deep universe, and of course, the installation and operation of the ISS. and you seemed really qualified for
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the job as uh a business manager, a successful entrepreneur, a flight and space enthusiast. So, I'm really curious to
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hear your views on NASA, the space industry overall, the race with China, and frankly hear a little bit about what
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the heck just happened with your nomination. A lot of people have a lot of questions that we'd love to hear your
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point of view on. So, I thank you for joining me today, Jared. I'm thrilled to be here to chat. And as a someone who's
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been a space enthusiast since kindergarten, whether it's through the lens of commercial space or, you know,
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the great space race from the 1960s or NASA today, like these are all subjects I get pretty charged up about. So, love
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to chat about what inspired you to get into space. You went to Embry Riddle Aeronautical
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University and you later became an entrepreneur, but were you always kind of obsessed with space and did you
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always dream of doing what you got to do last year, which is walk in space? Yeah,
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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
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TV. So, uh, I was watching movies like Top Gun, uh, The Rights Stuff, um, Space Camp, the movie, you know, 1980s movie
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where if you go to Space Camp, a robot's going to launch you into space. This was
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all stuff in like my elementary school year. So, um, I mean, I told I just showed it to my kids last week, by the
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way. So funny that you say that. I I pulled up Space Camp. I had to buy it because it's not on any of the streaming
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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
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and I ask them like, "All right, raise your hands if you've seen the movie Space Camp here and know who Jinx is and
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like no one raises their hands and that just goes to show I'm I'm old." So, so you were always into it. Is is that what
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you wanted to do to work in aeronautical engineering or as a pilot or what were you thinking of doing? Yeah, I mean so
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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 a
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pretty large large fintech now when I was 16 and I was just like most you know as you know entrepreneurs you're you're
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burning yourself out waking up on the keyboard and you know I said I need a hobby in life uh so I picked up my
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passion for flying and I I I basically had parallel careers you know in aviation and in and in business and I
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started flying air shows in uh in 2010 and 2011. 11 and I was flying with a bunch of really talented ex-military,
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even current military pilots and they were like, you know, you could fly in the, you know, in the Air National Guard
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or the reserves and um and I found out, well, wow, that's amazing. You can fly fighter jets part-time and serve the
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country. You need a college degree. I never had one cuz I I started my business at 16. So, that's actually why
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I went back to why I went back to school, went to Embry Riddle because it's a I mean, it's an aviation school.
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Uh I think it graduates um more Air Force pilots every year than the Air Force Academy. But anyway, that that's
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ultimately why I I got my degree. But my my pursuits kind of in parallel of of business and aviation has existed, you
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know, really since I was a teenager. So you're running this business. So Shift 4, just for those who are listening, is
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a payment processing company that is a public company today, $8.5 billion market cap. So you've built an
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incredible business. And then on the side, my understanding is you've flown like 7,000 hours in fighter jets and
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you've tried to beat the circumnavigation record a couple of times now. So, were you kind of going to
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work and then on the weekends flying? I mean, how did you kind of balance running a company trying to do that
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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
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how did you do that? Well, I mean, you know, again, I started my business at 16. I started flying a couple years
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after that. You know, this is before you have a, you know, a family and other responsibilities. So, like literally all
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I was doing was working and flying. Mostly flying at night, which was great. You know, I did that around the
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world record flight. Didn't get it in 08. Broke it broke that record in09. We did it to raise funds for Makea-Wish
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Foundation, which was which was cool. And it was a great challenge. And then, um, later on started flying air shows,
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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
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the air show flying, which was just maximum fun, super adrenaline, and was like, we're we're doing loops and rolls
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to music, you know, 10 ft off the ground, 18 in between our wings. We probably should pivot this to something
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that keeps the fun factor up, but has some commercial intent, also helps the country. So, we started a a defense
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company called Draen. We w up assembling the world's largest fleet of fighter jets, jets just like this behind me. And
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we were professional bad guys for the Department of Defense, the Air Force. Like we would fly as aggressors just
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like in Top Gun replicating Russian and Chinese Iranian tactics. I literally I mean I remember at Christmas parties in
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you know 2014 2015 speaking to the to the workforce I was like I hope you all know next to commercial space and what
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Elon's doing at SpaceX. This is the second coolest company. Like we get to be professional bad guys all the time.
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It was awesome. So I again I've had two awesome parallel careers. Um, but hey, running two companies like nothing
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compared to Elon. I think I I can't even He's got to be up to like a half a dozen
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CEO titles uh in parallel right now. Not to mention trying to save the, you know,
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the country um you know uh and get it back on a good fiscal footing. So, it's my my responsibilities are pale in
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comparison. Well, so when did you first meet Elon and how did you meet him? So, it's interesting and I almost like
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guarantee you wouldn't uh remember it. Uh after well, first I think like in early 2000. So, I started my fintech in
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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
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2000s and we that was probably the first handshake. It was after we set the uh we
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broke actually the uh I'm sorry we didn't break the record. This was in 2008 the around the world record. We
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came up short. Peter Demanis, Dr. De Manis reached out and um asked if uh if I wanted to go to Bikenor and see a
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Soyuse launch with some of the uh kind of early commercial space pioneers. I remember, you know, all the Google
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founders were on that TU154, you know, Russian transport. I'm like, man, if if this thing goes down,
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you're you're wiping out a lot of like a lot of brain power here because Sergey Larry, Eric Schmidt was on it. And that
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that was um it was coming back from that. I think there was a charity poker event or something at Elon's house in um
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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
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each other that well. I've only spoken to him, you know, a couple dozen times maybe over the years and almost entirely
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related to my commercial space missions, Inspiration 4 and Plaston. Oh, so you're
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not like super close with him because I think there's this narrative that you and Elon have a secret, you know, deep
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connection and he's one of your best friends. And you know, that's kind of like how how your hearing went when I
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look on the some of the video clips of how some of the senators were treating you. They're like, "Oh, you're you're
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doing this all for Elon. He's your best friend." Yeah, you know, the sen I think almost
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every one of the senators on both sides of the aisle made that assumption and asked a lot of questions on that. And I
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said, look, I Elon is one of the most accomplished, if not the most accomplished entrepreneur in modern
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history. Every one of his companies sets out to solve some of the greatest engineering problems for all
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humankind. Even his, you know, kind of super selfless service to the to the government of trying getting us back on,
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again, like I said, sound fiscal footing. Um, I admire a lot of what he does, but but honestly, and I told the
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senators, my connection is I I I paid his company to go to space twice. And look, if there was more than just SpaceX
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out there offering the service and you had competition, I probably would have paid less. Like, it's like, so if
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anything, I'm very pro competition in this regard. And uh, you know, I don't consider myself beholden to Elon at all.
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I want to see all of commercial space succeed. I'm I'm a huge space enthusiast. Let's go through that. So,
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you met Elon. Did you get involved as an investor in SpaceX along the way? How did the inspiration 4 mission come to
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be? In uh 2020, uh I did hear that, you know, SpaceX was doing another one of its secondary rounds and I was connected
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through, you know, I think it was city and I w up speaking to the CFO at uh at SpaceX and he's like, "No, look, the you
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know, funding round is closed and um you know, we're kind of pretty selective on
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on who we let in." I was like, "Okay, great. Well, hey, you know, back in 2008, I actually got the uh the first
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offer to pilot the first Dragon spacecraft, which is wild to think about, like 2008. And um even if I can't
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be an investor, you know, at some point or another, I'd love to have an opportunity. And he was like, well,
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can't be an investor now, but we could talk about uh a human spaceflight mission. And I had no idea I was going
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to have an opportunity to be the first. I assumed there was a lot of people in front. And um man, it was uh what a
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privilege to be able to do that. Um be part of mission design and select a crew of inspiring individuals and raise a
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quarter of a billion dollars for St. Jude. And it was just a successful mission. It helped open the door for a
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lot of other commercial missions to come. So awesome experience. So in 2021, you commanded inspiration 4, which was
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the first all civilian space flight using the SpaceX Crew Dragon. Yep. And that was just truly like a momentous
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mission. It was just so beautiful to watch. And I remember it was also like a tough year because it was a year after
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co. So it was so great to see that happening. But I had assumed and I think a lot of people had assumed that you
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were like a big investor in SpaceX or really tight. But it just happened within a a one and a half year or year
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period that you kind of went from, hey, I'd love to put some money into SpaceX to, oh, I can participate and command
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inspiration for and get out there into space. Like that's a year and a half days. Like I like literally from that
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phone call in, you know, October, um, Inspiration 4 was born. A week or two later, we did a like a ceremonial
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signing at the uh at the Crew One launch, which is wild, too. And it speaks to the confidence of SpaceX that
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they were ready to sign up for the first commercial, like the first civilian mission to orbit before they even
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returned operational capability uh for human space flight to NASA. Now, they did demo two, of course, with with Bob
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and Doug, but crew 1 had not flown when SpaceX said, "We're going to get this done." And then 10 months later, we were
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in orbit, and it was an incredible experience. And obviously, we followed it up with a whole development program
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with Polaris and um and flew a second mission as well. So, yeah. So, just going back, you said you were made, you
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were given an offer to pilot a Crew Dragon in ' 08. Is that correct? When did that how did that happen? So it was
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it was right after I came back from that around the world flight and again I said
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you know Dr. Dmanis reached out and uh we met in the city and he was like you seem to be like kind of thinking the way
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we think uh in in terms of you know a more exciting future in transportation and and aerospace. Now of course his
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interests cover everything from like human life extension to he likes to solve a lot of world problems too. Yeah.
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And it was through those connections and coming out to Bikenor that I did get that uh I did get
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that offer. I still have the agreement. It was funny. I uh I showed it to some of the SpaceX folks when we were talking
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about Inspiration 4, but yeah. Amazing. Yeah. Just knocked on the door every now
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and then and got lucky in 2020. Um it was certainly through the approach of trying to be an investor, but it it
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revisited old conversations and moved very quickly. Kind of funny that a banker called you from city and that led
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to you. Oh, I called the banker. Oh, you called the banker. They called the banker trying to get the the a contact
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uh like a a recent contact and that's uh that's that's like hook me up. I want to
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get in. That's crazy. Yeah. Okay. So then you said hey that was a successful mission. You had obviously a good
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relationship with SpaceX and the operations team there I'm assuming and you said hey I'd like to come back and
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like Polaris dawn was formed at that time or did that come together later just for the audience. So last what was
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it September you were the first private citizen in human history to perform a spacew walk which again another
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incredible moment and you know I think it was inspiring for people who realized at that moment that perhaps you didn't
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need to become an astronaut to be able to walk in space. I mean it was really just incredible. But how did the
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continuation go from inspiration 4 to Polaris dawn? Yeah and I I loved it. I mean, Plaston was filled with we crammed
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so many really incredible objectives in five days uh on top of about 40 science experiments. It was an awesome mission.
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I'd love to tell you about it. And and you know, but uh yeah, so when we came back from Inspiration 4, I thought we
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checked the box on every objective. I mean, we navigated the whole, you know, billionaire in in space thing, which at
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the time with, you know, some of the other, you know, missions that were going off was um was attracting a lot of
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a lot of heat and really focused it on trying to to do good in the world that, you know, we can make progress in space
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and try and, you know, make the, you know, mother earth a better place. And we focused on raising a lot of money for
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St. Jude. And um and anyway, like we did and we did three days of science and research experiments. It felt really
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good and we were a little bit short on our uh on our um you know our fundraising goal for uh St. Jude. I mean
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we we set out to raise over $200 million. We wound up raising $250 million but we were a little short and
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we came back and I was like man we almost got everything done and then Elon sent a tweet right after Splashdown. 40
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minutes after Splashdown and he said put me in for 50 million. And he already had
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put in five and we we we exceeded our goal and I was like man we got everything done. We set the bar high.
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Maybe this is it. And um it was a couple weeks later that I was invited to go to
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Starbase. Uh this was the second time I went. This was like October of 21. And we sat down with a number of folks
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including Elon. And we talked about, you know, doing a um like a developmental program where we actually can build
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things and test things that hadn't been done in a while. And I remember Elon, he's like, "We we can build a suit. I
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know exactly how I would do it. and let's go up really high, you know, let's get past the Gemini 11 record, go
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farther into space than anyone's gone since we last walked on the moon because it's it's different. It's hard and we're
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going to learn a lot. And that's what you need to do when you want to inspire people is not kind of do the same things
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over and over again, but but do things that are different and build up to an even grander objective. And I was like,
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"All right, I'm totally in." And we contemplated other missions, you know, a follow on to Polaris dawn and then the
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first crude flight of Starship. But, uh, the nomination came in and, you know, had to put my my, uh, fun space career
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on hold to to to for an incredible opportunity to serve the country and contribute to the world's greatest space
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agency. So, let's get into that. How did the conversation lead to you becoming the
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nominee to administer NASA? Were you in conversations with Elon first? Is that how this this kind of began for you? No.
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So, and and I think like that's another thing that, you know, almost every senator wanted to ask is, you know, you
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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
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the election. He he's was in Air Force One, Marine One. He was at Mara Lago throughout the campaign. I'm I'm I'm
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sure he had inputs. I was getting text messages from generals that I uh that I got to know when I built, you know,
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helped build that defense company, Draen. Uh that's where we flew all the fighter jets and and you know, they were
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in now positions of influence and said, "Would you like to serve in the in the administration and and it wasn't even
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just NASA. I mean, there were roles from Treasury to uh the department, you know,
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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
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apolitical, but if I've had one political position that I've been pounding the table on since I um since I
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I was exposed to the defense industry at Draen, it's the competitiveness of the nation. And that's because I saw when we
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were replicating, you know, enemy tactics in 2015 in fighter jets, the gap between our capabilities and the bad
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guys was wide. And you felt very confident and every year it started to shrink. And it's like, what is going on
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here? Why are we paralyzed? Why are we slowing down while while the Chinese especially are moving wicked fast? Um,
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and I've spoken out about it from time to time on where I think some of the problems are and over consolidation of
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the defense industry. So anyway, I I was absolutely honored to have a chance to serve. I'm sure Elon contributed into
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the, you know, was supportive in it, but it was a number of folks and I got a call from Howard Lutnick, who was
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leading the uh, transition team, and he did a phone interview and the next thing
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you know, like 40 hours later, I was at Mara Lago. He said, "Hop on a plane. Come out
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here." Having a lot of friends of mine who are serving in this administration, your story sounds familiar that folks
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that are close to this whole group that was sitting at Mara Lago for several weeks and months after the
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election. I've heard a lot of similar stories that folks got called saying, "Hey, would you like to consider
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something?" And it was very open-ended. It's like we've gotten to know you. We trust you. You're reliable. But most
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importantly, we're looking for folks that have experience and acumen in operating a business, in understanding
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how to manage at scale, and really have a similar sort of belief system, I would
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say, to the folks that that were stepping in to run this administration. So, I I do think what you're saying
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sounds like what I've heard and makes a lot of sense to me. Um, so so you then fly out to Mara Lago. What was that
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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
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uh a quick plan. Uh, at that point I knew it was consideration for NASA administrator, but I'll tell you in the
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days leading up to it, I was hearing everything from being at the Treasury Department in various roles and to um,
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you know, again to the Department of the Air Force, but I knew it was NASA and I
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was like, well, I got to I got to come with a plan and uh, and I, you know, we put together a one pager for the
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president and it was a it was a great interview. I mean, I never really met him in person. and I shook his hand kind
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of once in passing uh 10 plus years earlier and the president was incredibly knowledgeable. Um I was impressed. He
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knew a lot about the space program which makes sense. He I mean you know he helped with commercial crew return
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operational capability to the US with with Dragon. You know a big push on the Artemis program created the space force.
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He knew a lot he knew a lot about China. Uh he kn we talked a lot about their air
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force actually which I thought was interesting. some of my my um you know defense experience and uh it was
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incredible. I mean it was an hour plus long and I um I uh I came away with it feeling uh you know really good about
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the opportunity. Who coached you on your one page there and what did it say? Nobody coached me on it. It was it was
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just I generally you know I've had an opportunity to obviously interact with NASA over the last I mean my my
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commercial space career now goes on uh well it'll be it'll be 5 years in a in a couple months from when it began. And
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you know during Polaris storm when we were doing suit development spent a lot of time at NASA using their chambers and
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facilities had a lot of you know kind of firsthand experience certainly Kennedy Space Center. So I had a good starting
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place and uh I think it really just centered on look in in in this kind of environment budgets aren't getting
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bigger. Uh we do have to do more with less. The agency is doing a lot of littles a lot of things that other
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agencies departments companies are capable of doing. That's not why the taxpayers fund NASA. Like NASA's funded
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to do the near impossible that no one else can do, not things that, you know, companies should be doing for their own
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competitiveness. You know, uh NASA helps fund like engine efficiency programs for
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you know um commercial jet engine providers. It's like don't they need to do that themselves or else they lose to
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their competitors? Like why are we funding this? So basically like an idea to kind of go in stop a lot of the
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littles that are not needle movers that are not why the agency exists and concentrate on the needle movers. So,
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you know, that's leading in the high ground of space. Uh, let's get let's, you know, let's complete our our lunar
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obligations cuz that's a whole another story with with China. At the same time, parallel the the, you know, parallel the
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capabilities to get to Mars, help commercial industry uh, develop the the rapid reusable heavy lift capability
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that allows us to go anywhere, pivot from competing with industry to doing what no company would ever do, which is
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build nuclear spaceships. There's a lot of advantages to it. nuclear electric propulsion for sure. You know, we don't
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have to worry as much about refilling. It's hyperefficient transport of mass. It opens up, you know, beyond Mars. And
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and frankly, like look, it takes the pressure off insitu resource manufacturing. And if you are going to
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do insitu resource manufacturing, you're going to need nuclear power. And the farther we get away from the sun, the
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less reliant we are on solar. A lot of reasons why that should not be a small program in the lab right now doing light
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bulbs, but should be a billion dollar initiative. you know, figuring out the space economy and uh increasing the rate
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of world changing discovery. Those have been my priorities. Uh it's what I told briefed the president. It's what I went
00:23:04
through the Senate and the hearing on. It's what we would have tried to concentrate on if I got the job. There's
00:23:09
a lot in there we should unpack. I want to just get your perspective on the arc of NASA. You
00:23:17
know, NASA is a storied institution, inspirational to many. You and me the same. I still wear a NASA
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hat with pride often, but you know, the agency from an outsers's perspective feels like it's become a lagard. It
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feels like it's kind of lost a little bit of its luster. Why is that? Do I have that wrong? And if I don't, what
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has happened to the administration of the agency over the decades that's led to this this moment? Well, I like you, I
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love NASA, and I was so excited to to contribute. I was honored that the president nominated me. I mean, you've
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got the best and brightest that show up to work every day and want to win in the
00:23:58
high ground of space and I would have been thrilled to work alongside him. You're totally right. Everything about
00:24:02
it, even that just looking at the insignia, how how damn inspiring it is, but NASA's got problems and um but
00:24:09
that's that look that's not unique to them. It's going to be governmentwide. Whatever I tell you that I think is
00:24:13
wrong with NASA, I would guarantee it, you know, is uh like, you know, it's systemic across uh every government
00:24:20
agency and department. Uh the bureaucracy is super real. No one's gonna be surprised about that. You know
00:24:26
the you have dozens of layers of leadership. Everybody's got a deputy. I mean you know things that you know I
00:24:33
know like you know we know in business that certainly Elon knows and instills in his companies across commercial space
00:24:38
like ownership like you push ownership down to the lowest levels. You empower the smart people to make good decisions.
00:24:44
You know you give them the tools to make those good decisions. You hold them accountable when you get them wrong.
00:24:48
That does not exist inside NASA or the government. There is so many layers of management. Everybody's got a deputy.
00:24:54
It's crazy. I would have deleted all that. Like not that not the people don't need to go, but they need to, you know,
00:24:58
the the the amount of deputies, assistants, associate assistant to the deputy, the amount of committees, the
00:25:04
meetings with 200 people on them, the review boards, like like all that needs to go. You need so many more doers. And
00:25:12
there's a lot of them there. They're really smart, but you you got to push down uh you know, ownership to the
00:25:17
absolute lowest level. So you you got this crushing bureaucracy that impedes progress. And then and here's where
00:25:22
Congress plays a role. Every state's got some equity that they care about and they protect like hell and it impedes
00:25:29
the big progress. You know, like I I tell you, I I love talking to all the senators and the Senate was so fair to
00:25:34
me and and I know I would have had a lot of great votes, but you talk to some senators and they're like, you know, we
00:25:39
have a local rocket club that supports these schools and NASA contributes it to every year and I want to make sure that
00:25:45
continues. It's like, well, why can't you do a car wash for the rocket club? Like, this isn't huge dollars. Why can't
00:25:50
the community raise those funds? And then you might say, well, what's wrong with a couple rocket clubs, you know, to
00:25:55
inspire the kids all across the country? Well, well, one turns to 10 turns to thousands, and it becomes a distraction.
00:26:02
Those are parts to delete. Those are resources that are draining away from what every senator should care about,
00:26:07
which is how do we get to the moon, get to Mars, and shock the world with, you know, with with with world changing
00:26:13
headlines. That's what people are are waiting for from NASA, you know, 100%. I mean, man, what you're saying resonates
00:26:19
with me so much. It's not just NASA. It's across the federal government. I've spent enough time now interacting with
00:26:26
folks and meeting with folks and hearing similar stories. It's just the chaos that that builds with scale, with age,
00:26:33
with bureaucracy, with competing interests that all have to be met and you end up diluting everything away.
00:26:39
It's so frustrating to hear that. I think this does play into um why China is is really just moving at at lightning
00:26:48
speed right now. They have this immense second mover advantage that is um that is crushing across all technology. You
00:26:55
know when you had the Manhattan project we uh we had the the technical knowhow, the will and the resources to get
00:27:02
something done and we set up facilities where we needed them. you know, Oakidge and Lawrence Liverour and um you know,
00:27:09
like you know, you get um you put the facilities where you need them and the talent where you need them to execute on
00:27:15
the mission and everything builds up logically to it and you and you deliver a win. And we did the same thing with
00:27:20
the space program, you know, in the in the in the 1960s. Well, now all of those national labs and all and really
00:27:27
honestly a lot of the facilities within NASA are doing lots of little things for
00:27:31
existence. Um and some of them are relevant to the mission and some are not. And when you try and do something,
00:27:37
you know, glorious now, you have to try and repurpose those resources that are super entrenched and they don't want to
00:27:43
necessarily move. And then, of course, you have Congress that's protecting their programs. China is literally doing
00:27:47
what we are do what we did, you know, in the in the ' 40s and 60s and saying, we're going to, hey, we're going to go
00:27:53
after fusion, um, or we're going to work on next generation fifth gen nuclear reactors. We're going to build sixthgen
00:27:58
fighter jets. And they put the facilities where they belong with the right people and resources. There's no
00:28:03
baggage. and they have this incredible second mover advantage and they're able to get things done at lightning speeds
00:28:08
because they don't have all that drag and we have a lot of drag and again it's not just NASA it's it's governmentwide
00:28:14
and do you think there's a way to fix it without Congress or is the only way to fix it without
00:28:22
Congress meaning there needs to be no Congress if we have a shot at fixing this and there
00:28:29
needs to be a different governing model. Yeah. You know, look, I I think the uh I
00:28:34
think this is this is why I I absolutely support the the president that, you know, despite all I I mean, I my single
00:28:40
largest political donation ever was to was to President Trump in this uh you know, to support his inauguration. It's
00:28:46
why I got charged up with uh you know, with Elon assembling the Doge team is like we do have to shrink the
00:28:52
government. We do have to get rid of all these inefficiencies, these the waste and the distractions from the mission,
00:28:57
things that we don't need every taxpayer contributing to and actually concentrate
00:29:01
those dollars, real dollars, on the things that the taxpayers should be fighting for. And when you do that, you
00:29:07
know what, like 20 billion or 25 billion is actually a lot of money. And you know, and I know like it's it's a super
00:29:12
tough budget environment right now. And people people hate change, but I'm always surprised when like a million is
00:29:17
not a million anymore and a billion is not a billion because you do an awful awful lot with that. So, if there was
00:29:23
ever a time to get this done, uh it's now with President Trump with when he has the House and the Senate behind him
00:29:29
and and I'm not surprised that there is frustration from from people that were really passionate um and and and are
00:29:35
still passionate when uh when this much time goes by and we're not able to get those things done that we thought we
00:29:40
we'd be able to. So, NASA's budget last year, $25 billion. Break it down for us.
00:29:47
How is that money being spent? what are the dimensions upon which you would kind of categorize that budget?
00:29:54
Um, and we'll talk about kind of what's going forward. Yeah, I mean, look, I I think an
00:30:01
incredibly large portion of it is with human space flight and uh and specifically uh the Aremis program and
00:30:08
SLS and it's a lot of billions going to a disposable rocket. It is billions that
00:30:14
when I you're talking so I mean I think it's like five or 600% overrun to build the mobile launcher 2 for the next
00:30:21
generation SLS. So sorry just tell us what SLS is for the audience. That's the space launch system I think or it's uh
00:30:29
they also call it the Senate launch system I think and uh it's spread across um a lot of dollars are spread across
00:30:36
some key states. Well just to give you an idea so SLS is just repurposed shuttle hardware. So, uh, and I don't
00:30:44
blame anyone for putting us down this path because at the time you did not have Blue Origin or SpaceX or any of
00:30:49
these other commercial companies doing the things that are doing today, but they were like, "Let's, uh, let's take
00:30:54
the shuttle program parts and put into a program called Constellation, and let's
00:30:57
take the Constellation parts and put it in a program called uh, SLS." And and essentially, again, it's the it's it's
00:31:04
it's it's the same shuttle motors. It's the same solid rocket boosters. You're basically taking the tank and putting
00:31:10
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
00:31:15
very disposable, but it creates a lot of jobs in certain states and um and it's like at some and look, there's enough
00:31:22
hardware now to fly a couple missions and make sure you beat China back to the moon. But but you can't be stuck on this
00:31:26
forever. This is literally the equivalency, by the way, of taking P-51 Mustangs from World War II and using
00:31:32
them in Desert Storm because uh we got to keep the plants open. And that obviously makes no no logical sense
00:31:38
whatsoever for factories that are making this stuff that used to make landing ships in World War II that made Saturn
00:31:44
rocket that pivoted to shuttle to SLS and now to believe that you can't make another pivot is is kind of crazy and
00:31:50
the right thing you should pivot towards honestly is nuclear. I want to just talk
00:31:53
about the the Trump budget proposal for NASA. So this is the NASA budget over the history of NASA. And
00:32:02
the proposed budget would basically create the lowest budget since 1961. So they're proposing to reduce the
00:32:12
overall budget from 25 billion a year down to 19 billion a year. Were you part of the conversation on building this
00:32:20
budget? And then I'll highlight some of the features of this budget here in a moment. But did did you um have
00:32:25
conversations with the administration as this was being put together and some of
00:32:29
these proposals were being considered? I mean, how how deep have you gone in this? No, you know, when you're a
00:32:33
nominee, you're actually kept in the dark on a lot of things. Um you do get briefed on everything that's going on
00:32:39
with every center, you know, every major program, things that senators could ask
00:32:43
you about from a um from like a one-on-one perspective, but you're not given access to sensitive information.
00:32:48
you almost need some deniability when you're talking to senators on that or else your nominations could get held up
00:32:54
really big time. So, I wasn't aware I honestly uh I was voted out of committee, you know, uh the commerce
00:33:00
committee by um you know, Senator Cruz and and you know, 18 other it was 19 senators in total. And the next day, the
00:33:07
skinny budget came out. And if that skinny budget had come out uh you know again a day or two earlier I would I
00:33:13
would never have made it out of committee because obviously as as I think is playing out right now both
00:33:18
sides of the aisle are not happy about the you know the budget. Okay. So, in this budget, there's a proposal to
00:33:25
cancel SLS and Orion, terminate numerous robotic science missions, including the
00:33:32
Mars sample return mission. Mhm. Um, probes to Venus, and several future space telescopes. And it represents the
00:33:40
White House's desire to end the development of a nuclear thermal rocket engine. I guess having scrutinized this
00:33:47
budget, how do you react to what you see being proposed? And does it solve what you've identified as some of the
00:33:54
challenges in NASA? Or are those more management challenges? Does budget create a constraining force here that
00:34:00
fixes some of the issues with respect to focus and concentration of capital into
00:34:04
the right projects for from your point of view? Yeah, it's a it's a it's an excellent question. So So first, like
00:34:10
look, the the the reduction the big budget reduction is a great forcing function for change. And I know there's
00:34:17
a lot of people that probably don't want to don't want to hear that, but uh it is
00:34:20
true. That doesn't mean I would have landed at 19 billion in this whole thing, but I fully support uh the
00:34:26
president and uh with the goal of shrinking the budget and and and and getting back to responsible footing and
00:34:32
I do think billions can go a very long way. So uh I will just start with that. I I everything you just said
00:34:39
directionally is is is kind of in the right direction. We've already got paid for enough SLS hardware that if you were
00:34:43
to terminate for convenience now, you got enough to launch like two or three of them. It's enough to get you back to
00:34:48
the moon, check that box to make sure that you don't have any economic or scientific or national security reasons
00:34:54
to stay on the moon and and put your energy much more towards um commercial industry. Look, nuclear thermal uh
00:34:59
propulsion I'm not a fan of. I like nuclear electric. Nuclear thermal to test it, you're spewing radioactive
00:35:05
debris here on Earth. It's not going to go over well to anyone and it doesn't really solve your refueling problem. you
00:35:10
still need to top it off with hydrogen in space if you want a reusable space plug. So I don't like that either. And
00:35:15
and it's subscale. It's it's a fact. It's a program that sits in a lab forever. Like what you need in nuclear
00:35:22
electric I'm passionate on the subject is you you need us to get back to the good old days. Like we went from the
00:35:26
atomic bomb in 1945 to laying the keel on the nautilus in 1951. Five six years. We didn't keep it in a lab forever. We
00:35:33
said, you know what, we're going to do big bold things. And that's what we need to be doing with uh in space with when
00:35:38
it comes to uh to nuclear. Look, a lot of the science programs I'm huge fans of Mars sample return. The best thing to do
00:35:45
is when the astronauts get there to bring the samples home. Why would we spend billions to send a robotic
00:35:50
mission? We can put that into commercial industry and accelerate their timeline.
00:35:54
So, I'm not I I wasn't a fan of a pure robotic mission on that one. And you know, a lot of the big science programs
00:35:59
I want to see James Webs and Hubble telescope programs launching annually, if not more. Um, flagship programs
00:36:07
definitionally are billion dollar spends and if you spend a billion then you got
00:36:11
to get it right and that means lots of requirements and and and we can't take unnecessary risk and a billion becomes a
00:36:16
three billion program and it's never on time. Like we should be challenging the best and brightest. Give me 10 $100
00:36:22
million missions a year. Let's try that and let's accept that three fail and get
00:36:26
act you know I was going to introduce like time to science as a KPI like how why don't why do we accept things taking
00:36:34
10 years when they could be a year even the decal process of of prioritizing scientific missions over a 10-year span
00:36:40
is kind of insane 100% 100% and I I think a lot of people hear budget cuts and I I hear this on the NIH side as
00:36:49
well now that the administration and budget cutting is going to take lives people going lose lives. We're going to
00:36:54
lose science. This is an anti-science agenda. But the if you can get more efficient with how you deploy capital
00:37:03
and how you manage the deployment of that capital and the utilization of that capital, you actually accelerate
00:37:08
science. You accelerate outcomes and you improve the condition and the prosperity
00:37:13
for humanity and for America. And it's completely a misdirected statement when people say that a budget cut is an
00:37:20
anti-science movement. It's about finding the right places so that you get more outcomes and redeploy in a smarter,
00:37:26
more efficient way. It drives me nuts. I just see it, you know, all over uh right
00:37:30
now. That's just I mean it's just politics. I do think overfunding leads to complacency, leads to bureaucracy,
00:37:36
which actually leads to a slowdown in discovery, a slowdown in invention, a slowdown in progress. Anyway, I'm sorry
00:37:42
for my rant. I agree. Look, as I mean, as entrepreneurs, we know like some of our probably best decision-m is always
00:37:47
when we were running low on cash. So, um, you know, it kind of drives efficiency and, uh, it is a, you know,
00:37:53
necessity, mother of all invention there. Yeah. Look, I think that's just a product of some of our and I'm not
00:37:57
familiar with any of the NIH or and I'm I'm not pretending to go deep on that at
00:38:00
all. Just I do think this is kind of a product of of of the politics of our time. It's a very divided country. You
00:38:05
know, people have to take an opposing view and and and go to extremes. People will die over over this. But the
00:38:11
government is terrible capital allocators. Come on. We should all know that. And you know we should as
00:38:16
taxpayers we should be contributing to the things that no one else is willing to do where there is no good business
00:38:20
use case or or economic model you know it is in you know if competition is working they can solve a lot of problems
00:38:27
and we should put our energy to what they won't solve. Um and and look I think Katzios by the way in science he's
00:38:32
a great leader. I I've spoken to him a bunch of times. Um you know he he's not a quag. He doesn't think wild things
00:38:38
like that. He he wants you know the golden age of science and discovery. I'm fair. Yeah. Good science. Yeah.
00:38:43
Absolutely. Well, let's talk about Artemis. I think this is a big piece that that the American public doesn't
00:38:49
fully gro that we have this effort and maybe you can just lay out for us the case for Artemis. Lay out for us the
00:38:58
case for Mars. Tell us about the relationship between the two and the timelines. Sure. And why Yeah. Why are
00:39:05
we doing them? Let's just say I I am in the return to the moon camp. doesn't mean like uh you know I and I'm I know
00:39:11
that you know Elon is very focused on on Mars and he has a lot of great reasons why including just the survival of our
00:39:18
species. I mean the long term it is the right move. I remember um during my hearing uh one senator was really
00:39:24
grilling me a lot of like what really what's the difference between you know moon and Mars and uh you know isn't
00:39:30
moons a stepping stone. I'm like well one's a planet you know and uh you know it has an atmosphere and if you looked
00:39:35
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,
00:39:40
from solar radiation. So, reality is like you should go to the moon if it because for 35 years we said we were
00:39:47
going to. And I think that's very important. You know, we it's it's it's very late in the game to say, well, we
00:39:53
did it in the 60s and early 70s. You know, that would have been the fine position to state the entire time that
00:39:59
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 a hundred
00:40:05
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
00:40:10
it. Like I said, it's it signals a far greater disease across our our government and and how our system
00:40:16
operates. And I don't think we want that reckoning. So look, we paid for the hardware anyway. We let's let's go back,
00:40:21
but let's parallel going to Mars. So that's what Artemis is really about. I mean, you can say Artemis is about Mars,
00:40:25
too, but that's like 100 years down the line. And like I said, it's a giant disposable rocket program that
00:40:30
repurposes shuttle hardware. It's incredibly expensive. We signed up a lot of international partners to support it
00:40:36
because we like collecting flags. Um, and it doesn't necessarily always mean that what they're contributing to is in
00:40:42
the best interest of the program. Case in point, you know, we had, you know, gateway man like this is going down a
00:40:48
rabbit hole of a lot of things because of the shortcomings of the vehicle, but it's expensive. It's disposable. it is
00:40:53
not the way to do uh affordable, repeatable, efficient exploration whether it's to moon, Mars or anywhere
00:41:00
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
00:41:05
seeing people walk on the moon every 5 years or something crazy that it's happening all the time which is what we
00:41:10
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
00:41:16
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
00:41:22
know, you want clear objectives. And in my mind, again, aside from the fact that
00:41:26
the hardware is already essentially purchased, it's clear objectives. Is there any economic, scientific, or
00:41:32
national security reasons to be here? And I don't think we can say that conclusively right now that that there
00:41:37
are none. and China is going uh and if they were to find something even a small probability a 1% let's just say
00:41:44
hypothetically it's helium 3 and and they're going to usher in a new form of power. Think about how many conflicts
00:41:49
that we've had over the last century over uh over sources of power over energy. Do we want to get that one
00:41:57
wrong? And and are we willing to take a 1% chance and and that could shift the balance of power here on Earth? I don't
00:42:03
think so. And we said we were going to do it for 35 years and we and we spent 100 billion of taxpayer money. Like I
00:42:07
said, the hardware is there. But I think you do it. You make those determinations. Is there scientific,
00:42:11
economic or national security reason to be here? And if not, you move on. And if
00:42:15
companies like Blue Origin and SpaceX and even Rocket Lab are successful with their vehicles, you're going to have
00:42:21
like the optionality to go to the moon. It's not the Delta V is a negligible difference between whether you're going
00:42:26
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
00:42:34
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 I you know Elon
00:42:41
is obviously very passionate about it occupy Mars like he knows it's not the perfect destination there's nothing like
00:42:46
you can you know it's unlike anything in in Earth's history you know people say it's analoges to you know the explorers
00:42:53
of the 1400s or putting people in like those shipping containers for six months and saying we know how to live on Mars
00:42:58
it's you know you could work your whole life on Mars and you still live in a bubble
00:43:03
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
00:43:09
our destiny is out and among the stars. Like we will inevitably learn something out there that's going to change our
00:43:16
thinking and we it's going to it's going to create a a craving for that knowledge
00:43:20
and we are going to want to continue to go out and explore and learn even more. Mars is the best stop first step on that
00:43:27
journey. So, let's talk about getting there and achieving some of the other missions that we might have as a
00:43:34
country, as a species, and the relationship with private industry. Elon believes he can get
00:43:42
payload into orbit for $10 per kilogram with the Starship platform, which is, call it a roughly 100x reduction in
00:43:49
cost. Yeah. Um maybe more. Maybe from some from a depending on the point at which you're measuring it, maybe a
00:43:55
thousandx reduction in cost. And that unlocks the potential to do these things in an economically viable way. Going to
00:44:02
the moon, going to Mars. Why shouldn't NASA be more fully embracing of this private industry
00:44:13
capability? Is it because it's Elon or is it because it reduces money going to defense contractors? What is the
00:44:21
motivation against going all in on this company SpaceX or companies like it that
00:44:29
have built these competencies that would have been unfathomable just a few decades ago but are real here today? Oh,
00:44:35
this is such a a deep conversation. Uh so, um look, I I one thing I'd say is like I obviously I love SpaceX and they
00:44:44
safely put me into space twice on two awesome missions, brought me home and I'm cheering them on. I I'm I'm happy
00:44:49
what SpaceX is doing. I'm thrilled about the investments that Blue Origin's doing, that Rocket Lab is doing, you
00:44:55
know, uh Firefly. So, it's a look, we have a great industry. So, the broader question is just why isn't why isn't
00:45:00
NASA leaning more into commercial? Well, look, it's NASA's foresight that gave birth to the commercial crew program
00:45:06
that enabled even me to go to space. So, like they are thinking in that direction, but there are politics in
00:45:10
play. The nice thing is is those winds are shifting uh throughout my you know, whole confirmation process. you know,
00:45:17
you are educated heavily by some very smart political folks. Uh they sherpa you around every senator and they were
00:45:23
like, look, the, you know, a year ago, two years ago, the idea of talking to senators that are in SLS states and
00:45:30
convincing them we need to be looking a little bit more to the future with commercial and maybe pivoting to things
00:45:34
like nuclear propulsion would be a non-starter. And I'll tell you, they were very reasonable. uh all of them
00:45:40
were very reasonable that they know that you're you know this this rocket built on 60-y old technology that's $4.5
00:45:47
billion a launch has an expiration date. So I do think like that ship is turning.
00:45:52
It's just this isn't like a this isn't a speedboat. The government, you know, it's a it's turning like it's a giant,
00:45:58
you know, shipping container. It turns a half a degree like a year and uh and that's not obviously fast enough for a
00:46:03
lot of us. Um but I would say it's moving in that uh that direction. And then NASA also has to, you know,
00:46:09
repurpose its resources on things that a SpaceX or Blue Origin won't do. They're
00:46:13
not going to put a rock, they're not going to build a nuclear reactor and launch it. Uh you're not going to get
00:46:17
the indemnities for that. Even shipping highlyenriched uranium is a nightmare. That is what the government should be
00:46:23
doing. Like so NASA should be doing what the commercial industries can't. And that by the way takes so much stress off
00:46:28
a company like SpaceX trying to get to Mars. Like if you can minimize the number of space-based refueling or the
00:46:34
insitu resource manufacturing, look, even when a starship gets to Mars, you're betting on like you know a 100
00:46:40
consecutive miracles happening to top to mine propellant there and bring it back.
00:46:45
NASA should be helping. The government should be helping with that because it it creates a lot of other optionality.
00:46:49
We can have you know nuclear battle stars in lower Earth orbit um you know as part of uh Golden Dome. There's a lot
00:46:55
of reasons why you know it's not all SpaceX all commercial versus NASA. both totally. So just to compare last week
00:47:03
Space Epoch, a Chinese rocket company completed its first sea recovery test. So much like we saw a few years ago with
00:47:11
SpaceX, they had a vertical launch and they landed back in the ocean about 125 second flight. The key question a lot of
00:47:18
folks are now asking, has China caught up? Is this a space race? Why does it matter? Because isn't space big enough
00:47:25
for everyone? I mean the space is the ultimate high ground and the high ground has mattered
00:47:31
you know it's had tactical and strategic significance since like the beginning of
00:47:34
humankind. It matters. I was grateful to have the opportunity to lead you know the peaceful exploration uh of space but
00:47:40
it's not all peaceful like we we we can't be naive to the fact that it has been weaponized and you know China leading in
00:47:47
this domain makes a difference. Um there are things of scientific and economic and again national security value out
00:47:54
there and we we can't we have to lead we can't fall behind. If we fall behind we
00:47:58
may never catch up. So and I am concerned about that uh you know China moving closer to reusability. They
00:48:04
launch the second most uh orbital rockets every year without reusability. Uh you know thank goodness for for
00:48:10
SpaceX or or we definitely be already behind in that regard. So um I am concerned about it. It it it honestly it
00:48:17
is a race and like yeah we we the domain is vitally important we can't fall behind. So that gives them the high
00:48:24
ground with respect to weapons systems with respect to observational platforms sensors etc. Right. Yeah. Okay. So so
00:48:32
let's talk a little bit about your nomination. You seem I would give you my vote. You should be the administrator of
00:48:36
NASA. It would be amazing. Um thanks. You testified in front of the Senate committee on April 9th. I think it was a
00:48:43
19 to9 vote to move you out of committee. Yes. Then there were reports going into this weekend that you were
00:48:49
going to be voted on by the full Senate this week and the estimates were you were going to
00:48:54
get 70 confirmation votes or that was some news report I had read. So it seems like you were going to fly right through
00:48:59
and administer NASA. Um so then what happened? So I I mean I got a call um Friday of last week that um you know the
00:49:10
uh the president has decided to go into a uh go in a different direction. Uh it was a um uh it was a real bummer and I
00:49:19
uh I know like a number of parties in government need to be notified of that which um you know I expected to kind of
00:49:25
have just a peaceful weekend and the next thing I knew on Saturday you know it was uh there was a lot of activity on
00:49:30
the internet but maybe that's just like my perspective cuz I follow space uh and
00:49:34
and such but it was certainly uh you know disappointing but uh you know the president needs to have you know his
00:49:40
person that you know he counts on to to fulfill the agenda And um yeah, I uh the person that called
00:49:48
you, what was what did they tell you was the reason the president was withdrawing
00:49:51
his nomination? Uh just said the president had decided to go in a different direction. We all serve at the
00:49:56
pleasure of the president. Um now I mean I started to get some more details as it
00:50:01
went on. I honestly also like I'm not like I don't like play dumb on this. I I had a pretty good idea of um you know
00:50:09
that um you know I don't think that the timing was much of a coincidence uh that
00:50:14
you know there was other changes going on the same day and uh you know it was kind of uh obviously a little bit of a a
00:50:21
disappointment. So are you referring to Elon? I I just you know there was uh obviously
00:50:30
there was more than more than one you know departure that was covered on that day and um it became uh you know at
00:50:38
least from what I what I've heard that it was uh there was a um you know there was and I'm just you know I read the
00:50:44
news same as everybody else but I you know had obviously was in the in DC for the last 6 months getting ready that you
00:50:50
know there were some people that um you know that had some axes to grind I guess
00:50:55
and uh and I was a a good visible uh target. I know that like the the news talks a lot about like that, you know,
00:51:02
Democratic donations is the cause. Um that was not a new development. You just Google, you can they're all public. The
00:51:08
New York Times published an article saying that President Trump knew about your Democratic donations in the past
00:51:14
when you received the nomination. So that was actually not news according to the New York Times that that was well
00:51:20
understood, well covered. So kind of put the kibos on that explanation. So what are the axis to grind or the access to
00:51:27
grind with Elon? Are there kind of two factions? Whatever you can kind of provide some color on, I think it would
00:51:32
be really helpful to understand because there's a lot of speculation going on right now and I would say some folks are
00:51:38
really disappointed in some of the transitions that are taking place and some folks are really trying to grock it
00:51:42
and understand it. So anything you can do to help folks understand would be, you know, I think helpful. You know,
00:51:47
first I just I want to be overwhelmingly clear. I I I don't fault the the president at all. I fully support him
00:51:52
that you know the president of the United States you know the leader of the free world makes a thousand decisions a
00:51:56
day with seconds of information. He's got to get a lot more right than wrong. Um so I don't I mean you know I don't
00:52:02
blame you know an influential adviser coming in and saying look here's the facts and I think we should kill this
00:52:08
guy and the president's got to make a call and move on. Um I think that's exactly uh you know kind of how it went.
00:52:14
Um it was not the Senate at all. Uh you don't get floor time by the way. uh you know there's a hundred nominees that are
00:52:21
like waiting for floor time. The only way you get floor time is when a lot of senators you know call Senator Thoon and
00:52:27
say this is our guy and we got to move him along. That's how you know it's like a high you're going to get a high vote
00:52:32
count. So the Senate was very fair, really nice. I I enjoyed that experience. I you know I think you you
00:52:39
got one person um and I don't know the history on like what the trigger was or wasn't but um you know decided to to
00:52:47
kind of make a move and again I don't fault the president for it at all but you know look in in in terms of
00:52:52
donations I I've always been you know somewhat of a moderate I actually like I am like a right leaning I I I do support
00:52:59
you know the president's agenda that's why I made as big of a donation as I did to his cause. Let me just ask for
00:53:05
clarity. Yeah. Sorry. Go ahead. I was just going to say like when you fill out your questionnaire for the Senate
00:53:09
committee, which is public, it asks you to list every donation. Before you go in
00:53:13
front of a single senator, before you do a hearing, you do these um prep sessions
00:53:17
at the White House where people pretend to be senators and they prep you on the donation question. So like that wasn't
00:53:22
new news. Might have been new to the president at that, you know, might have refreshed his memory perhaps, but uh
00:53:28
that I don't I don't think that was the cause. I think the media has got it pretty accurate.
00:53:32
So, was this a shot at Elon by someone that is anti- Elon? I mean, you know, people can draw their
00:53:41
their own conclusions, but I I think the direction that people are going is um or
00:53:45
thinking on this seems seems to check out to me. And what is the root of that? Is it vested interest in spending that
00:53:52
Elon is advocating gets cut? Is it diametrically opposed philosophical points of view on the role of
00:53:58
government? What is the root anti- Elon sentiment? that is kind of on the other side of the
00:54:04
equation here. Do you think I mean I think that the uh the people overwhelmingly voted for the president
00:54:10
to go in and shrink the government and bring about change and get rid of fraud, waste and abuse of which I am a
00:54:16
thousand% behind the president and I I believe that that's what you know Elon and Doge was working towards. But people
00:54:23
also hate change. Like we all know this and um you know people can uh be very protective of their empire and you know
00:54:30
when somebody comes in you know Elon's got a playbook and I think he knows how to get things done. And I and I I think
00:54:35
you know in a lot of respects that um that rub some people or you know what I think that was one of you know or um had
00:54:41
some axes to grind. I don't know. And uh and um you know we're just waiting. I I
00:54:46
I don't I you know I don't want to speculate on all this but yeah. No, I mean, um, I think that that you've said
00:54:54
enough and I I guess you've seen the tweets from Elon today where he was pretty negative about
00:55:05
the House bill that is being labeled the big beautiful bill, making the case that
00:55:12
it's actually going to drive up a government deficit to over two trillion, two half trillion dollars a year. It
00:55:17
doesn't make deep enough cuts. There's a lot of pork in there, a lot of wasteful
00:55:21
spending in there. And then the House Speaker today responded to Elon saying, "Hey, we've still got a recision bill
00:55:28
coming. We've still got an appropriation bill coming where we're going to start to fix the budget." But clearly Elon is
00:55:34
now getting vocal about his point of view on this. Have you spoken with him at all about what's going on and
00:55:40
government spending and his kind of take on things as he's walked out of the office there? Well, you know, as you
00:55:46
know, I kind of mentioned, I told the Senate, too, like I've only spoken to Elon, you know, I don't know, a couple
00:55:51
dozen times, most of which related to human space flight missions, but when I was talking to him towards the end of
00:55:56
last year, it it was all on government efficiency related programs. And I think Elon got a lot of people excited about
00:56:04
Doge u by making like one simple point. The interest rate on the national debt exceeds, you know, the DoD budget.
00:56:11
that's scary and it's getting worse and we can't spend our way out of this problem. Um, which we've grown a habit
00:56:17
to doing and I know he's very passionate about it and um, you know, he sacrificed
00:56:22
a lot along with all the others you know at Doge to try and bring about some significant you know spending cuts and
00:56:27
then you know to see a bill come in you know uh whatever 1,200 pages or so that you know adds you know to the deficit I
00:56:35
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
00:56:41
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
00:56:49
drop in the in the bucket. So I can't imagine that's too exciting. You think he's going to get more vocal?
00:56:57
I 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
00:57:04
trying to solve a lot of world's problems and and a problem for this country and I think a lot of people
00:57:07
agree with it is that the um you know this national debt is just getting way out of hand. I mean, this has been my
00:57:14
case for about four years that if we don't fix this, it eventually becomes an intractable death spiral. And uh when
00:57:22
that happens, all of the wrangling we're doing over budget, priorities, programs,
00:57:28
interests, jobs are no longer possible. It's like you're trying to rearrange the deck chairs on the
00:57:35
Titanic. You don't get the choice of what programs to fund when there is no funding. And that's the unfortunate
00:57:40
iceberg we're running into. Do you think Doge is dead? Any point of view on that?
00:57:46
I mean, it was interesting. You know, obviously there was kind of the grand exit uh this past week and then I don't
00:57:51
know, at least in my Twitter feed, I try and follow a lot of the cabinet secretaries. You know, they were all
00:57:54
coming out and saying, you know, Doge is alive and well embedded inside the I you
00:57:59
know, I think it was more implying that like, you know, we're going to clean house. We're going to take care of our
00:58:03
own house as opposed to letting other people help us do it. Problem is, like we haven't been very successful at that
00:58:09
historically. So, I suspect going into the midterms, people don't want to, you know, let the other side be pounding the
00:58:15
table on Doge. So, I I don't know. I mean, I look, I was I've been an outsider nominee, so I have no idea how
00:58:20
it'll play out, but I I I I think that some I imagine some people in the government want to see it go quiet late
00:58:25
in the night. Is there a deep state? And does the deep state's like, is it too big to
00:58:34
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
00:58:42
there is an absolutely bloated bureaucracy that uh hates change uh gets very entrenched that is happy to ride
00:58:52
out uh political appointees like you know what you're gone in three four years or you know you're or dead before
00:59:00
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
00:59:06
that in with actual, you know, uh politicians and political appointees that um uh advocate like hell for the
00:59:12
status quo. And some of it might be good intended because they're just afraid of
00:59:17
what comes next. And you know, why um why take a risk when you've got something right now that supposedly
00:59:23
works? And I ask like, you know, what what if that what if that comes at the competitiveness of the nation and our
00:59:28
economic security? What if we get it wrong because you weren't willing to take some risk and and make changes? Um,
00:59:34
so I don't think they're necessarily all evil, by the way. I just think some people get very comfortable in the
00:59:39
status quo. Are you going to go back to space? I um I don't know. You know, this is
00:59:47
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
00:59:54
going to go back and help Shafor. I won't ever rob my CEO of his well-deserved, you know, title now. I
01:00:00
I'll probably be an exec chair or something. And, you know, I got to work. I got to have a mission. Um, but I'll
01:00:05
find something to to contribute to. And man, I I love uh I love flying and I love space and I like the philanthropic
01:00:12
efforts we've been doing with St. Jude. So, I'll keep busy. Amazing. Well, look,
01:00:16
you're you've been, if nothing, Jared, an inspiration to many. Uh, I appreciate your commitment to service, your
01:00:23
commitment to charity, your commitment to discovery, and uh, I want to thank you for the time today. It's been really
01:00:28
great talking with you. Thank you. Oh, thank you. I, uh, I appreciate having the opportunity to chat.
01:00:35
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