President Donald Trump has named Transport Secretary Sean Duffy as the new interim head of NASA in another blow to his estranged former benefactor and ally, Elon Musk.
“I am pleased to announce that I am directing our GREAT Secretary of Transportation, Sean Duffy, to be Interim Administrator of NASA,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday.
“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!”
Duffy responded on X, Musk’s own social media platform, by saying: “Honored to accept this mission. Time to take over space. Let’s launch.”
He will succeed Janet Petro, who has held the role since January and eradicated DEI policies from NASA in accordance with the president’s executive order to that effect.
His appointment will come as a double setback for Musk, who, during his time in the White House, had lobbied for his friend Jared Isaacman to be given the job.
Trump duly nominated Isaacman and went through the hearing process with the Senate’s Commerce Committee in May, only for the honor to be abruptly withdrawn days before a full Senate vote on his candidacy had been due to take place. The president cited “a thorough review of prior associations,” a seeming reference to the entrepreneur’s history of support for liberal causes.
Isaacman himself told the All-In podcast several weeks later that he believed his nomination being rescinded was because of his friendship with Musk, by then out of favor, and said: “There were some people who had some axes to grind, and I was a good, visible target.”
His snubbing is thought to be one of the reasons behind the subsequent rapid deterioration of the relationship between Trump and Musk, which came to a head on social media over the president’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” and resulted in a series of deeply personal insults.
The SpaceX boss is also unlikely to be happy to see the former reality TV star placed in charge of NASA because the two men reportedly fell out behind the scenes over cuts to the Department of Transport recommended by Musk’s DOGE operatives.
“I have multiple plane crashes to deal with now, and your people want me to fire air traffic controllers?” Duffy reportedly yelled at Musk in March.
The secretary went on to attack DOGE in an April press conference at which he said: “Do I want to make our government more efficient? Do I want to be able to do a little more with a little less, because then I put more money into the great work that we do? Yeah, I want to do that. But you can’t do that without good people, right?”
He continued: “And so, though I want us to be more efficient, I also look, and as I think of DOGE cutting things, I don’t know about that elsewhere, but we actually build things here, right? You can’t cut your way to a new road, you can’t cut your way to a new bridge, you can’t cut your way into a new air traffic control system. So we’re actually going to build in this department.”
Privately, Duffy might be rather less than pleased at being asked to lead NASA, given that he is already busy tackling a substantial workload that covers everything from the crisis at Newark Airport to revising speed regulations for long-haul truckers, not to mention caring for nine children at home.
The situation recalls that of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was jokingly dubbed “Secretary of Everything” in May after being named acting national security adviser in addition to running the State Department, serving as acting administrator for what remains of the U.S. Agency for International Development and acting archivist for the National Archives and Records Administration.
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