Donald Trump announced on Wednesday that he is appointing his Secretary of Transportation, Sean Duffy, to head NASA, the American space agency.
Sean Duffy will be the “acting administrator” of NASA, the American president specified on his Truth Social network, without indicating for how long.
“He will be an exceptional leader of the space agency, which is becoming increasingly important, even if it is only for a short period,” he emphasized.
His previous nominee for the position, businessman Jared Isaacman, a close associate of billionaire Elon Musk, was dismissed at the end of May, shortly before the public fallout between Messrs. Trump and Musk over his budget bill project.
The American president explained this reversal on July 6 by stating that Jared Isaacman was a “Democrat who had never contributed to a Republican campaign.”
“I also thought it would be inappropriate for a very close friend of Elon, who is in the space industry, to lead NASA while NASA is such an important part of Elon’s activity,” he added.
The White House had, on the contrary, downplayed the risk of conflicts of interest involving the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX during his four months in government, tracking fraud and waste with his Commission for Government Efficiency (Doge).
With AFP
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