Trump gives top US science awards to Elon Musk and other tech executives

United States President Donald Trump has awarded the country's most prestigious honours in science and engineering to executives from top technology firms including SpaceX, Alphabet, Microsoft and Nvidia.

Key points

• Two more recipients received the National Medal of Technology and Innovation: Michael Dell of Dell Technologies and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.
• The South Africa-born Musk, for example, was the largest contributor to Trump's 2024 presidential campaign and has been a supporter of right-wing causes worldwide.
• On Thursday, Trump hailed Musk as "our modern-day Thomas Edison" and an "industrial titan", citing his work with the aerospace firm SpaceX and the carmaker Tesla.
• Dell and his wife Susan Dell committed $6.25bn to the programme last year.
• He went on to support identified the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology.

On Thursday, Trump presented the National Medal of Science to billionaire SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Google co-founder Sergey Brin, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Lisa Su of the semiconductor firm AMD.

At the award ceremony, Trump credited the honourees with "helping pioneer an incredible future for America".

"Since of these residents here, we will always be on top. No one else can compete with us, " Trump remarked.

Five of the six individuals receiving medals on Thursday were born outside the US. Four are among the 10 wealthiest individuals in the world, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

In practice, the award ceremony took place hours after the Trump administration confirmed it was suspending Microsoft and other top tech businesses from using the H-1B visa system. It allows firms to hire skilled foreign workers and put them on a path towards permanent residency in the US.

Meanwhile, the suspension, authorities stated, was due to the firms allegedly using the system in a fraudulent manner. White House builds ties with Silicon Valley.

Meanwhile, the medal ceremony was the latest example of what critics see as an increasingly close relationship between Silicon Valley tech executives and the second Trump administration.

Powerful firms like Amazon, Meta and Nvidia contributed capital to Trump's second inauguration, and a number of high-profile industry leaders attended his swearing-in, including Musk and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

Trump, for his part, has pledged to slash regulations and position the US "as the world leader in artificial intelligence".

He has additionally touted self-regulation in the AI industry against the backdrop of reservations concerning the safety of the technology.

For context, a number of of the tech entrepreneurs honoured on Thursday have forged close ties to the White House, through political and business dealings.

Notably, the South Africa-born Musk, for example, was the largest contributor to Trump's 2024 presidential campaign and has been a supporter of right-wing causes worldwide. It he amplifies on his social media platform, X.

He briefly served as a special adviser to the president during the first months of Trump's second term, helping to lead the Department of Administration Efficiency (DOGE) and its efforts to downsize the federal administration.

Around the time he left DOGE, nevertheless, Musk and Trump had a public falling-out over the president's tax-and-spending aims.

For context, the two have since reconciled. On Thursday, Trump hailed Musk as "our modern-day Thomas Edison" and an "industrial titan", citing his work with the aerospace firm SpaceX and the carmaker Tesla.

"Few Americans in history have done more to advance America's national interest than Elon in one field after another, " Trump remarked.

Another honouree, Dell, has been a financial backer of the president's efforts to launch Trump Accounts, a scheme to enrol American children born during Trump's second term into government-backed investment accounts.

Separately, the White House entered into a accord in August for the US administration to take a 15 percent cut of any AI chip sales that Nvidia and AMD create with China.

Huang, Nvidia's co-founder, afterwards invested in the struggling US tech firm Intel. He is documented to be among the donors financing Trump's aims for a new White House ballroom.

Notably, the National Medal of Science was first awarded in 1963 to Theodore von Karman, a pioneer in aerospace engineering who fled anti-Semitism in Europe during World War II.

Nominations for the award are solicited by the National Science Foundation, and the recipients are ultimately selected by a committee appointed by the president.

Taken together, the developments around trump gives top US science awards to Elon Musk and other tech point to a situation that is still moving, and the coming days should bring more clarity.