There was a time when America’s highest science honour went to people whose names the public had to be taught. On Wednesday at the White House, it went to four of the most famous business figures on Earth. President Trump presented the National Medal of Science to Elon Musk, Sergey Brin, Jensen Huang and Lisa Su at a ceremony folded into a summit the administration billed as “Science: A New Golden Age.”
The quartet is, in effect, a table of organisation for the artificial intelligence age. Huang’s Nvidia makes the chips the industry runs on; Su’s AMD is its principal rival; Brin co-founded Google, whose research seeded much of the field; and Musk, who has cycled through alliance and open feud with this president, now stands again inside the room. Two more technology figures — Microsoft’s Satya Nadella and Dell’s Michael Dell — received the National Medal of Technology and Innovation at the same event, making the ceremony less a science prize than a group portrait of an industry.
The White House framed the honours as gratitude. An assistant press secretary, Liz Huston, said the administration was grateful for the recipients’ contributions and credited them with helping ensure America keeps leading the world in innovation. It was the first time Trump has presented the science medal in either of his terms, and the guest list doubled as a map of the administration’s technology policy: build fast, regulate lightly, and keep the build-out American.
The symbolism cuts both ways, as symbolism at this altitude always does. To supporters, the medals ratify a merger of state purpose and private capability that is pouring unprecedented capital into data centres, chips and power. To critics, honouring billionaire executives whose companies lobby the government doing the honouring invites questions the ceremony was not designed to answer.
What is not in question is the photograph: a president and the men and woman who own the commanding heights of the AI economy, sharing a stage at the White House. Whatever future historians make of this administration’s science policy, they will start with that picture.
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