US President Donald Trump awarded SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk the National Medal of Science — the nation's highest scientific honor, according to infohub.kz.
According to NBC News, other influential figures in the American tech industry were also honored. National Medals of Science were presented to Google co-founder Sergey Brin, Nvidia chief Jensen Huang, and AMD head Lisa Su. Michael Dell of Dell Technologies and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella received National Medals of Technology and Innovation.
"We live in an age of American wonders and technological achievement, and thanks to the brilliant men and women here today, we will always remain on top," Trump said.
During the ceremony, the White House chief emphasized that all of them would go down in history as great people.
As RIA Novosti reports, Trump called Musk a national treasure.
"We are proud of you, very proud of you, (our — ed.) national treasure," the American president said during the solemn ceremony.