Musk to Receive National Medal of Science as Trump Hands Out First-Ever Honors

Elon Musk is among a small group of technology leaders set to be recognized with the U.S. government’s most prestigious scientific award, according to White House officials familiar with the plans. President Donald Trump is scheduled to present the National Medal of Science during a Thursday event at the White House called the Science: A New Golden Age Summit, with Musk’s name on the recipient list.

Joining Musk for the science medal are Google cofounder Sergey Brin, Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang and AMD CEO Lisa Su. A separate honor, the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, will go to Dell Technologies founder Michael Dell and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. A White House spokesperson described the recipients as leaders whose work helps keep the United States at the forefront of global innovation, and Reuters later confirmed the roster through an administration official.

The ceremony carries a historical footnote: it marks the first time Trump has handed out either medal across his two terms in office. The National Medal of Science was established by Congress in 1959, and the National Science Foundation, which oversees the program, counts 529 scientists and engineers among past recipients. Nominees are vetted by a presidential committee before the president makes the final selection. Trump’s uncle, MIT physicist John G. Trump, was among those honored previously, receiving the science medal from President Ronald Reagan for research into ionizing radiation and its medical and industrial applications.

Several of this year’s honorees sit at the heart of the competition over advanced computing hardware, an arena where Musk is deeply invested. Nvidia supplies the GB300 chips that fill SpaceX’s Colossus 2 cluster, while AMD stands as Nvidia’s primary challenger in data center graphics processors. For Musk, the award reflects a striking turnaround in his relationship with the administration after a 2025 falling-out over the “Big Beautiful Bill” and his departure from DOGE. In recent days he joined Trump at a White House lunch where AI executives signed a voluntary safety agreement, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth named him to help lead the Pentagon’s Project Meridian study on the future of warfare. Musk has also embraced the administration’s new terminology, saying Sunday that SpaceXAI would be rebranded SpaceXSI after Trump directed federal agencies to swap “artificial intelligence” for “super intelligence.” It is not his first scientific accolade; he received the Stephen Hawking Medal for Science Communication in 2019.