Former Virgin Galactic CEO George Whitesides is headed to Capitol Hill.
Whitesides, who additionally has “NASA chief of workers” on his resume, gained his U.S. Home of Representatives race to characterize California’s twenty seventh district, which covers a giant chunk of land north of Los Angeles.
“It is the distinction of a lifetime to be elected to serve our district in Congress and ship for Santa Clarita, the Antelope Valley and the San Fernando Valley,” Whitesides wrote in a assertion on X Monday night time (Nov. 11). “In Congress, you possibly can rely on me to battle to create extra good native jobs, decrease on a regular basis prices, construct secure communities, shield Social Safety and Medicare and shield reproductive freedom,” he added.
Whitesides, a Democrat, beat Republican incumbent Mike Garcia in an in depth race, capturing about 51% of the vote. Garcia conceded on Monday (Nov. 11), in accordance with LAist.com.
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Whitesides will take a wealth of aerospace expertise and curiosity to Washington, D.C. From 2004 to 2008, for instance, he was government director of the Nationwide Area Society, a nonprofit that advocates for area science and exploration. Throughout that stretch, he additionally served as a senior adviser to Virgin Galactic, Richard Branson’s suborbital area tourism firm.
Whitesides labored on President-elect Barack Obama’s transition workforce in 2008 and have become NASA’s chief of workers the following yr. He held that publish till Might 2010, when he left with the Distinguished Service Medal, the company’s highest honor.
He returned to Virgin Galactic, turning into the corporate’s first-ever CEO. Whitesides departed the corporate in 2021 to gear up for a political run (and do different issues, equivalent to co-found Megafire Motion, a corporation dedicated to combating america’ worsening wildfire downside).
Final week’s election introduced different aerospace gamers into the political motion as effectively — chief amongst them SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk, who campaigned onerous for President-elect Donald Trump.
Trump introduced yesterday (Nov. 12) that Musk will co-lead the Division of Authorities Effectivity, a brand new group that goals to “dismantle authorities paperwork” and “slash extra rules.”
