Trump awards national medals to six tech CEOs who collectively donated at least $6 billion, analysis finds

Trump Awards National Medals to Six Major Donors

On Thursday afternoon, President Trump awarded national medals for advancements in technology and science to six CEOs and founders: Google's Sergey Brin, NVIDIA's Jensen Huang, Advanced Micro Devices' Lisa Su, Dell Technologies' Michael Dell, Microsoft's Satya Nadella, and SpaceX and Tesla's Elon Musk.

A New Republic analysis found that these six awardees collectively donated at least $6 billion to Trump's campaign, his inauguration fund, his White House ballroom, pro-Trump super PACs, and other Republican initiatives aligned with Trump's agenda.

Sergey Brin, Google Co-Founder, Current Gemini AI Head

• Google's parent company, Alphabet (which Brin co-founded), donated $22 billion to the Trust for the National Mall, a fund that will help construct Trump's White House ballroom plan. The donation was made as part of a settlement in Trump's January 6–related lawsuit against YouTube.
• Google separately donated $1 million to Trump's inauguration fund.
• Brin himself donated half a million dollars to the Republican National Committee last year.
• He spent more than $100 million in an effort to kill California's proposed wealth tax.
• These donations do not include other links between Google and Trump, such as the company's decision to hire Trump ally Carlos Trujillo's lobbying firm, Continental Strategy, to lobby the White House.

Jensen Huang, NVIDIA CEO

• Huang donated an unspecified amount to the construction of President Trump's $300 million White House ballroom last year.
• He attended a $1 million-per-plate dinner at Mar-a-Lago.
• NVIDIA announced it would pledge $1 billion to Trump's Genesis Mission AI project on Thursday morning, shortly before Huang received his award.

Lisa Su, President and CEO, Advanced Micro Devices

• AMD donated $1 million to MAGA Inc., a pro-Trump super PAC.
• AMD pledged to give 15 percent of its processor sales revenue from China to the Trump administration.

Elon Musk, Tesla CEO, xAI CEO, X Corp. CTO

• Musk served as a quasi-member of the Trump Cabinet as head of DOGE.
• In 2024, he was Trump's largest donor and the biggest political spender in the entire country, shelling out $277 million directly to Trump and other Republican campaigns.
• Musk helped form Trump's America PAC and ran a $1 million election "lottery" scheme to pay Republican voters.

Michael Dell, Dell Technologies Founder, Chair, and CEO

• Dell and his wife gifted the Trump administration $6.25 billion to the president's "Trump accounts" program for children.

Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEO

• Microsoft contributed $1 million to Trump's inauguration fund and an undisclosed amount to his White House ballroom.

Trump has disclosed millions in stock trades in the companies run by all six individuals.

Trump Claims "Water Hurricane" Hit North Carolina

North Carolinians were blissfully unaware that they survived one of the "great water hurricanes" of all time—until Donald Trump said so at the White House summit for scientific achievement Thursday.

All hurricanes lash rain as a fundamental part of the storm system, but the president suggested Thursday that there was a difference between a cyclone and what he described as a "water hurricane."

"I will tell you personally, because I was involved, we had a hurricane—one of the great water hurricanes of all time—delivered more water than at any time that we can remember on record," Trump said in the midst of a speech intended to celebrate Elon Musk's SpaceX and Starlink technologies.

This is not the first time Trump has used the phrase. He previously pitched the idea during a presidential campaign stop in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, in October 2024. He lamented the role that water had played during Hurricane Helene—a Category 4 storm that ravaged the state and simultaneously sparked Trump's interest in dismantling the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

"I must've been the first [to visit the area], I followed that storm right in," Trump said two years ago. "But I saw the devastation, I came back the following week because I didn't want to get in, it was a travesty, it was a vicious, it was water, the water was the worst we'd ever seen, it was a water hurricane, that's what it was."

Fact Check

• Hurricane Helene was not the most severe rainfall event in U.S. history. That distinction belongs to Hurricane Harvey, which battered portions of Texas and Louisiana across eight days of rainfall in 2017.
• Trump was not involved in the immediate response. He visited North Carolina once, making three stops on October 21, 2024—nearly a month after the storm had passed.
• "The power of nature. Nothing you can do about it, but you got to get a little bit better crew in to do a better job than has been done by the White House. It's been not good. Not good," Trump said at the time.

Aftermath and Controversy

• The storm inspired an unfounded MAGA conspiracy that the Biden administration was using FEMA funds to assist undocumented immigrants.
• After North Carolinians voted Trump back into office, the Trump administration made it difficult for the state to access emergency relief.
• The Trump campaign initiated a GoFundMe where Americans could privately donate cash to help rebuild damaged regions of North Carolina. They raised $7.7 million, but that money effectively disappeared within a year.
• Trump's team distributed the money to Christian charities with close ties to the president, including Mtn2Sea Ministries, Water Mission, Samaritan's Purse, the Clinch Foundation, and Sweetwater Mission. As religious entities, none were legally required to publicly disclose their expenditures.

Casualties and Ongoing Recovery

Hurricane Helene killed at least 250 people across seven states, making it the second-deadliest storm to hit the mainland in U.S. history. More than 100 of those fatalities happened in North Carolina.

The state is still dealing with the fallout: state officials are working to provide internet and housing assistance for thousands of people who lost their homes, according to a factsheet released by Governor Josh Stein's office in September.

Hegseth: Fort Hood Shooter's Execution to Be Public, Livestreamed

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth wants convicted Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan's execution by firing squad to be open to the public.

Speaking to Jack Posobiec for Real America's Voice on the USS Abraham Lincoln Wednesday, Hegseth was asked about the decision to execute Hasan, a former Army psychiatrist who shot and killed 12 soldiers and one civilian in 2009 on the base before being shot, wounded, and arrested. President Trump approved Hasan's death by firing squad to take place December 3, the first such military execution in over 60 years.

"Of course we're going to do it at Fort Hood. We're going to do it on a Thursday, we're going to do it at one o'clock, which is when he did it, and it's going to be soldiers with rifles executing the firing squad," Hegseth said. "We know what it was, it was a radical Islamist attack in uniform inside the ranks, and so he's going to get a firing squad of soldiers, as it should be, and we'll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it's public, because people need to understand that there's serious consequences for these types of things."

A Pentagon official later confirmed that the execution will be livestreamed. Current Army regulations allow for at least two media outlets to be present for the execution. No legal execution has ever been broadcast live in the U.S., and the country's last public execution was in 1936.

Since he was convicted of a military crime, Hasan's execution required approval from Hegseth and then Trump, which was granted. Trump's Department of Justice does not want this to be the last firing squad execution. In April, the DOJ announced it was bringing back federal firing squads for death penalty sentences. President Biden had paused all executions and commuted the death sentences of 37 prisoners to life without parole as he was leaving the White House.

This story has been updated to clarify the last such execution.