Who is Jared Isaacman? The tech billionaire behind the historic spacewalk

Jared Isaacman, the founder and chief executive officer of Shift4. Credit: CNN

Billionaire Jason Isaacman has recently made history by completing the first-ever privately funded spacewalk, hundreds of miles above Earth.

The tech entrepreneur teamed up with Elon Musk's SpaceX to finance the spacewalk mission.

"Back at home, we all have a lot of work to do. But from here, it sure looks like a perfect world," Isaacman said as footage showed him emerging from his capsule.

But who is the billionaire tech entrepreneur and why did he want to go to space?

How did Isaacman become a billionaire?

Isaacman, born in 1983, was a high school dropout who lived in his parent's basement in New Jersey, USA long before he became an astronaut.

He said in the Netflix documentary Countdown Inspiration4 Mission to Space that he was a "terrible student" who "wasn't happy in school".

He left school aged 16 in to start Shift4 Payments, a payment processing company.

According to Forbes, he got the idea for the company at 15 while working for a local payment processing firm, where he learned how complicated it was to set up credit card readers.

In the Netflix documentary, he said he worked from 7:30am to 3am, and his company eventually flourished in the US.

Today, at 41 years old, Shift4 handles over $260 (£199) billion in payments each year for more than 200,000 customers across the US, Canada, Japan, and Europe.

Isaacman became a billionaire after taking Shift4 public in 2020, with his 38% stake boosting his net worth to $2.3 (£1.8) billion, according to Forbes.

However, his wealth did not solely come from Shift4. In 2011, he founded Draken International - a defence company that trains US Air Force pilots.

The company grew to become the world’s largest private fleet of military aircraft.

Isaacman would eventually sell a majority stake in Draken to Blackstone in 2019 for a nine-figure sum.

Where did his love for space come from?

Anna Menon, Scott Poteet, Jared Isaacman and Sarah Gillis pose during training for the Polaris Dawn mission. Credit: CNN

Isaacman's love for space grew from his passion for flying.

He attended flight school in the early 2000s, where he started flying with propeller planes but eventually moved on to jet aircraft.

In 2009, he set a record for the fastest trip around the world in a light aircraft, completing the journey in 61 hours and 51 minutes.

After becoming a billionaire, Isaacman took his passion for air travel to new heights by funding and leading the first all-civilian mission to space aboard SpaceX’s Dragon capsule.

Subscribe free to our weekly newsletter for exclusive and original coverage from ITV News. Direct to your inbox every Friday morning.

He set a record as the first space tourist to orbit Earth without a professional astronaut on board.

Ahead of the flight, he hoped to help usher in a new era of human space exploration.

“I wasn’t alive when humans walked on the moon. I would certainly like my children to see humans walking on the moon and Mars and venturing out to explore our solar system,” Isaacman said.

Want a quick and expert briefing on the biggest news stories? Listen to our latest podcasts to find out What You Need To Know…