WASHINGTON DC: US President Donald Trump on Thursday (local time) honoured six leading American innovators, including Elon Musk, Sergey Brin, Jensen Huang, Lisa Su, Michael Dell and Satya Nadella, with the National Medal of Science and the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, describing the recipients as “national treasures” helping pioneer an “incredible future for America”.
Trump presented the medals at the White House’s “Science: A New Golden Age Summit”, where he said the honours represented the highest recognition for achievements in science and technology.
“Today we honour six more national treasures who are helping pioneer an incredible future for America by awarding them the National Medal of Science and the National Medal of Technology and Innovation. That’s the highest you can get,” Trump said.
The National Medal of Science was presented to Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, Google co-founder Sergey Brin, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and AMD CEO Lisa Su. The National Medal of Technology and Innovation went to Dell Technologies CEO Michael Dell and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.
Trump said his administration had taken action from the beginning of his term to strengthen American leadership in science and technology.
“From day one, my administration has taken decisive action to ensure that America continues to dominate the frontiers of science and technology,” Trump said.
Trump began the ceremony by recalling his uncle, Dr John Trump, who served as a scientist and professor at MIT for 52 years and contributed to the development of radar during World War II.
Trump said his uncle served on the National Defence Research Committee and advised on the use of radar during D-Day.
“For his achievements in the production and use of radiation in medical and industrial applications, Dr. John Trump was awarded the National Medal of Science by President Ronald Reagan in 1983,” Trump said.
Following a brief video tribute to Dr John Trump, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) Director Michael Kratsios presented Trump with the medal originally awarded to his uncle.
“Mr. President, we have been able to find the medal from your uncle, and we here want to present it to you in a beautiful frame,” Kratsios said.
Before presenting the medals, Trump praised the six recipients for their contributions to science and technology.
“Sergey Brin is a visionary computer scientist who permanently changed the way the world finds information and put all human knowledge at our fingertips,” Trump said.
He said Brin had also helped pioneer web applications, smartphones and cloud computing and had returned to Google to drive progress in superintelligence.
“Sergey, congratulations on receiving the National Medal of Science. Congratulations. Fantastic job,” Trump said.
Brin was recognised “for the development of foundational algorithms for information retrieval and data processing that revolutionised how the world accesses information across science, commerce, and in the course of everyday life.”
Trump described Lisa Su as an “industry trailblazer” who revolutionised computer performance and highlighted her work in semiconductor engineering and her leadership at AMD.
“She transformed AMD into an industry powerhouse with the Zen microarchitecture and chiplets, ultimately propelling the company’s value from under $2 billion to over $1 trillion,” Trump said.
“Lisa was the first woman to receive the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Robert N. Noyce Medal, the highest honour for work in semiconductors. Lisa, congratulations on receiving the highest and most important medal of its kind anywhere in the world, the National Medal of Science. Congratulations. Great job. Well, amazing,” he added.
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