Payments firm founded by Trump's NASA pick settles with SEC

PATRICK T. FALLON/Getty Images via Bloomberg

Fintech Shift4 reached a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission, resolving government claims that the company made unreported payments to company officers' family members.

President-elect Donald Trump has nominated Jared Isaacman, Shift4's CEO, to be the next NASA administrator. Shift4's clients include Elon Musk's SpaceX.

Shift4's $750,000 settlement covers compensation of about $1.1 million for a nonexecutive employee who is a child of one of Shift4's directors and a sibling of an executive officer. This compensation was not included in the company's 2020 annual filing and proxy statement.

The SEC also says another executive officer's sibling received $280,000 in commission as a sales agent who was not a Shift4 employee. 

Shift4 made additional payments of $120,000 to family members through fiscal 2023, according to the SEC, which notes these payments were not disclosed to the government.

The SEC did not name executives, directors or family members who received payments. Shift4's leadership team includes CEO Jared Isaacman and Chief Commercial Officer Michael Isaacman, Jared's brother. Shift4's board includes Don Isaacman, Jared and Michael's father. Jared and Michael have two other siblings.

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Shift4 did not respond to a request for comment. According to the SEC, Shift4 offered to settle without admitting or denying the agency's findings.

Shift4 is a digital payments company that in 2021 signed a contract to provide services to Elon Musk's SpaceX. Isaacman has also flown as an astronaut on SpaceX missions. Shift4's products include a payment gateway that includes encryption, processing and aid for clients that want to change banks or processors without undergoing a major infrastructure overhaul.

The company has thousands of clients across North America in retail and hospitality, including Choice Hotels, Caesars Entertainment, Red Roof Inn, Sleep Number and the PGA Tour. Shift4 additionally powers payment processing for Harbortouch, Future POS, Restaurant Manager and other firms. 

Jared Isaacman founded Shift4, which is based in Allentown, Pennsylvania, in 1999 when he was 16. He has been an advocate for mobile payments technology, arguing that it is superior to plastic card technology in advancing point of sale innovation.

Shift4's relationship with SpaceX and Musk also ties Jared Isaacman to Trump. In addition to his role as CEO of SpaceX, Tesla and the social platform X, Musk is leading a government cost-cutting initiative for Trump, creating potential controversy over Isaacman's NASA nomination, which the U.S. Senate must confirm. NASA has a $25 billion annual budget and has a series of space and robotic projects underway.

Jared Isaacman is one of several Trump administration nominees with fintech industry experience. The incoming president has also nominated Fiserv CEO Frank Bisignano to be commissioner of the Social Security Administration. Bisignano has vast experience in banking and bank technology, and was part of a major technology overhaul at First Data, which helped that company recover from a 2008 crisis-era slump and attract Fiserv, which acquired First Data in a 2019 acquisition.

Trump's other nominees include former PayPal Chief Operating Officer David Sacks to be the White House artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency "czar."