Trump names Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy as interim head of NASA

President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he is directing Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to be the interim NASA administrator.

“Sean is doing a TREMENDOUS job in handling our Country’s Transportation Affairs, including creating a state-of-the-art Air Traffic Control systems, while at the same time rebuilding our roads and bridges, making them efficient, and beautiful, again. He will be a fantastic leader of the ever more important Space Agency, even if only for a short period of time. Congratulations, and thank you, Sean,” the president wrote in a post on Truth Social Wednesday.

Honored to accept this mission. Time to take over space. Let’s launch,” Duffy wrote on X shortly after the president’s post.

Trump’s post did not clarify the status of Janet Petro, the director of the Kennedy Space Center in Florida who has been serving as NASA’s interim chief since the start of Trump’s second term. She was still listed as the administrator
The shake-up came just days before the Senate was expected to vote on the nomination of Isaacman, who has twice traveled to space on private missions and has close ties to billionaire and SpaceX chief Elon Musk.

“After a thorough review of prior associations, I am hereby withdrawing the nomination of Jared Isaacman to head NASA. I will soon announce a new Nominee who will be Mission aligned, and put America First in Space,” the president said at the time.

The president, discussing Isaacman’s nomination in a long social media post railing against Musk over the weekend, said that he thought it would have been “inappropriate that a very close friend of Elon … run NASA.”

“I also thought it inappropriate that a very close friend of Elon, who was in the Space Business, run NASA, when NASA is such a big part of Elon’s corporate life,” the president wrote in the post.