Trump Plans to Honor Elon Musk with Highest Scientific Award

The White House announced on Wednesday that U.S. President Donald Trump intends to honor Elon Musk and other top technology executives with the nation’s highest scientific award in a ceremony scheduled for Thursday.

Alongside Musk, Trump will award the National Medal of Science at the “Science: A New Golden Age” summit to Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google; Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia; and Lisa Su, CEO of AMD.

Michael Dell of Dell Technologies and Satya Nadella of Microsoft will be honored with the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, the highest award in that field.

White House spokesperson Leigh Houston said in a statement obtained by Agence France-Presse that “the Trump administration is grateful for the contributions of these outstanding leaders in science and technology. Thanks to them, America remains at the forefront of innovation.”

Musk, whose companies include SpaceX, Tesla, and X, has been a close ally of Trump and the largest donor to his presidential campaign, although their relationship soured last year over debates on reducing government spending.

He was also among a group of technology executives who attended a meeting at the White House last week with the president to discuss ways to regulate artificial intelligence.

Musk, along with Huang and others, was invited to a dinner hosted by Trump in honor of Chinese President Xi Jinping during his official visit last month.