At a White House “Science: A New Golden Age” summit on October 8, 2026, Trump awarded the National Medal of Science to Elon Musk, Google co-founder Sergey Brin, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and AMD CEO Lisa Su, and the National Medal of Technology and Innovation to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Dell founder Michael Dell, NBC News reported.
The same day, a newly released ethics disclosure showed Trump's portfolio made at least 20 trades in August in companies tied to the honorees, including Nvidia, Tesla, SpaceX, Alphabet, AMD, Dell and Microsoft, Yahoo Finance reported, among them up to $5 million in SpaceX debt bought two days before he signed a space-transportation policy (see Trump Made More Than 1,000 Securities Trades in a Single Month, Worth Up to $263 Million, While Setting the Policies That Move Those Markets). The White House says independent managers make all investment decisions. Musk was Trump's largest individual donor for his 2024 campaign, and Brin donated large sums to the Republican National Committee in 2025, The Hill reported; Michael and Susan Dell pledged $6.25 billion to the administration's “Trump Accounts” initiative, The Washington Sun reported. No link between the awards and the trades or donations has been documented.