As chairman of the US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, & Transportation, Cruz effectively has control over Isaacman's confirmation process. He was also just re-elected to a six-year term, so theoretically Cruz is less susceptible to political pressure from the Trump White House.

Elon Musk is beefing with a former commander of the International Space Station on his social media platform X, in a quarrel over the two NASA astronauts that have been at the station for months. The spat escalated with Musk on Thursday calling to decommission the ISS,