Trump Awards Science Medals, Hails Musk as Edison
President Donald Trump put America’s greatest innovators in the spotlight this week, awarding the National Medal of Science and the National Medal of Technology and Innovation to the executives shaping the nation’s future — and calling Elon Musk the “modern day Thomas Edison.”
The medals were presented Thursday at a summit titled “Science: A New Golden Age,” celebrating the engineers and founders whose work is keeping the United States at the front of the global technology race.
Honoring the Builders of American Innovation
“First we honor an industrial titan, a brilliant engineer and one of the greatest technology founders to ever live. His name is Elon Musk,” Trump said during the ceremony. “Few Americans in history have done more to advance America’s national interest than Elon.”
Musk, the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, was one of four recipients of the National Medal of Science. The other honorees were Google cofounder Sergey Brin, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, and Advanced Micro Devices CEO Lisa Su — leaders at the center of the artificial intelligence boom that is redefining the global economy.
The National Medal of Technology and Innovation went to Dell CEO Michael Dell and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, recognizing their contributions to the hardware and software that power the modern world.
A Golden Age of Science and Super Intelligence
The summit was inspired by a July report from White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Michael Kratsios, which argues that the American research system should put the individual scientist ahead of legacy institutions and prepare the federal research enterprise for the AI revolution.
Just last week, Trump brought Musk, Huang, and other top tech executives to the White House to sign what he described as a “morally binding” accord on developing artificial intelligence safely — a field the president now refers to as “super intelligence.”
The agreement, signed by Trump and the leaders of six of the country’s biggest AI firms, calls on companies to maintain “robust internal processes and controls to ensure that their technology behaves as intended.” Rather than letting Washington micromanage the technology, Trump said the companies themselves should lead on safety — keeping American AI both fast-moving and responsible.
A Family Tradition of Science
The ceremony carried a personal touch for the president. Trump’s uncle, John G. Trump, was himself a recipient of the National Medal of Science, receiving a posthumous award from President Ronald Reagan in 1983 for his pioneering work on the applications of ionizing radiation to medicine, industry, and atomic physics.
The honorees’ support for the Trump agenda runs deep. Musk donated $291 million to support Trump and Republican candidates during the 2024 election cycle, making him the largest individual political donor of the cycle. Dell and his wife Susan pledged and donated $6.25 billion to fund Trump Accounts, the federal child savings and investment initiative launched by the Trump administration that has already auto-enrolled tens of millions of children.
Conclusion
By handing the nation’s highest scientific honors to the men and women building the AI era, Trump made the case that American greatness in science is alive and accelerating. From Edison to Musk, the message of the day was simple: America’s golden age of innovation is not behind it — it is happening right now.
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