U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has chosen billionaire businessman and pilot Jared Isaacman as the next NASA administrator. The founder and CEO of Shift4, a payment processing company, Isaacman has twice paid to fly in space aboard capsules built by SpaceX, a rocket company led by Elon Musk, a close Trump ally.

“Jared will drive NASA’s mission of discovery and inspiration, paving the way for groundbreaking achievements in Space science, technology, and exploration,” said Trump in a 4 December post on Truth Social.

A high school dropout, Isaacman founded Shift4 in 1999. In 2011, he founded Draken International, which provides fighter aircraft and training services to military customers. A trained jet pilot himself, Isaacman paid SpaceX an undisclosed amount to orbit Earth in a Dragon capsule in 2021. Earlier this year, during a second flight aboard a Dragon capsule, he became the first private citizen to conduct a spacewalk. Data from those missions have been used in studies to understand the toll of space on astronauts’ health.