Donald Trump decorated Elon Musk, his former friend who fell from grace last year, with the “National Medal of Science”, which marks the return of the tech giant to the presidential orbit.
In addition to the boss of Tesla and SpaceX, Jensen Huang (boss of processor giant Nvidia), Sergueï Brin (co-founder of Google) and Lisa Su (general director of semiconductor manufacturer AMD) received this distinction during a ceremony in Washington.
But all eyes were on Elon Musk, omnipresent in the White House during the first months of Donald Trump’s term in 2025 and formerly responsible for budget cuts in the federal government.
“Elon Musk is our Thomas Edison (the inventor of the electric light bulb, editor’s note) of modern times,” praised Donald Trump, calling the multi-billionaire a “national treasure.”
“Elon, I want to congratulate you. You are my friend, and someone truly, truly exceptional,” added the Republican during a summit titled “Science: A New Golden Age.”
Michael Dell, founder and boss of the IT giant of the same name, and Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, were decorated with the “National Medal of Technology and Innovation”.
Elon Musk was an ardent supporter of Donald Trump during his 2024 presidential campaign, which he generously financed.
However, the two men fell out publicly at the start of summer 2025, after criticism from Elon Musk on Donald Trump’s budgetary directions. But the multi-billionaire has once again approached the government.
He was recently entrusted with a mission from the Pentagon, with which he has major contracts, consisting of identifying the technologies and weapons that the United States will need for its future wars.
Elon Musk was also part of the group of big artificial intelligence bosses who signed a code of good conduct last week at the White House.
He was also present at the state dinner held in honor of Chinese President Xi Jinping in September.
During the ceremony on Thursday, Donald Trump was presented with a frame containing the National Medal of Science awarded in 1983 posthumously to his uncle John Trump, professor at the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
The 80-year-old president is particularly proud of this relationship, and often makes the link between this physicist uncle and his own “high intelligence quotient”.
