On Thursday, President Donald Trump will award national science and technology medals to a roster of top tech executives at a White House event titled Science: A New Golden Age Summit.
The recipients include leaders in science and technology who, in some capacity, have financially contributed to Trump or Republican campaigns and causes.
Who is receiving which medal
The White House says Trump will present two national honors.
National Medal of Science
Trump is set to present the National Medal of Science to:
- Elon Musk, who leads SpaceX and Tesla
- Sergey Brin, Google co-founder
- Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia
- Lisa Su, CEO of Advanced Micro Devices
National Medal of Technology and Innovation
Trump will also award the National Medal of Technology and Innovation to:
- Michael Dell
- Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft
How the White House is framing the event
In an emailed statement, White House assistant press secretary Liz Huston said:
"The Trump Administration is grateful for the contributions of these incredible leaders in science and technology. These recipients are helping ensure America keeps leading the world in innovation."
The donation connection
Each of the awards recipients has financially contributed, in some capacity, to Trump or Republican campaigns and causes.
- Musk was Trump’s biggest financial backer in the 2024 election cycle, contributing over $290 million, and later led an effort to slash the federal workforce as a special government employee of the Trump administration.
- Brin attended Trump’s inauguration and contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Republican National Committee in 2025.
- Huang donated to a fund to build Trump’s White House ballroom, and Nvidia contributed $1 million to Trump’s inauguration ceremony.
- Dell is a longtime Trump donor. Along with his wife Susan, he committed $6.25 billion to seed Trump Accounts designed to jumpstart savings for children in the U.S.
- AMD is also contributing to Trump funds.
Recent AI meeting at the White House
The summit comes a little over a week after Trump hosted a White House lunch focused on artificial intelligence that included several of the same executives and other industry leaders.
After the gathering, Trump told reporters he signed a “morally binding” document with the tech leaders, as calls for a slowdown in the development of AI models reached a fever pitch.
Trump’s trading disclosure
According to Trump’s most recent disclosure, he bought or sold shares in SpaceX, Tesla, Nvidia, Microsoft, AMD and Google parent Alphabet as recently as July.
