Trump hails Musk as 'modern day Thomas Edison' at science awards

President Donald Trump awarded medals to leading tech executives, including Elon Musk, for their contributions to science and technology on Oct. 8.

In addition to Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, whom Trump hailed as the "modern day Thomas Edison," recipients of the National Medal of Science include Sergey Brin, cofounder of Google; Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia; and Lisa Su, CEO of Advanced Micro Devices. The National Medal of Technology and Innovation will be given to Dell CEO Michael Dell and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. The ceremony will be held at a summit titled "Science: A New Golden Age" at the Institute of Peace.

"First we honor an industrial titan, a brilliant engineer and one of the greatest technology founders to ever live. His name is Elon Musk," said Trump. "Few Americans in history have done more to advance America's national interest than Elon."

Last week, Trump gathered tech executives including Musk and Jensen, at the White House to sign a "morally binding" accord on safely developing artificial intelligence, now being called super intelligence by Trump.

The agreement, signed by Trump and six executives of the country's largest AI firms, including Musk and Jensen, calls on companies to have "robust internal processes and controls to ensure that their technology behaves as intended."

Trump said the tech companies should regulate themselves, rejecting calls from industry leaders and researchers to proceed with caution on the development of artificial intelligence.

Almost all of the award recipients or their companies have donated to either Trump’s campaign, his inauguration fund or the White House ballroom project. Musk donated $291 million to support Trump and Republican candidates during the 2024 election cycle, making him the largest individual political donor of the cycle, according to campaign finance analysis from OpenSecrets.

Dell and his wife, Susan Dell, pledged and donated $6.25 billion to fund Trump Accounts, a federal child savings and investment initiative launched by Trump's administration. Microsoft donated $10 million to the ballroom project.

The summit was inspired by a July report by White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Michael Kratsios, the White House said. Among other things, the report says the U.S. research system should prioritize the individual scientist over legacy institutions and prepare the federal government's research enterprise for the AI revolution.

The president's uncle, John G. Trump, received a posthumous National Medal of Science in 1983 from President Ronald Reagan for his "introduction of new machines and methods for the widespread beneficial application of ionizing radiation to medicine, industry and atomic physics," according to the National Science and Technology Medals Foundation.

This story has been updated to add new information and a video.

Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy is a White House correspondent for USA TODAY. You can follow her on X @SwapnaVenugopal.