In a statement, the Nobel Committee clarified that while the physical symbols of the award, the medal, diploma and prize money, may be gifted, sold or donated, the honour itself is non-transferable.
Trump later confirmed that he had accepted the medal, posting on Truth Social that it was a “wonderful gesture of mutual respect.”
Over the years, several Nobel laureates, or their families, have donated, sold or displayed their medals elsewhere, without affecting the official record of the award.
Medal for Trump, Nobel for Machado: Nobel Panel Says Honour Stays With Laureate
Machado was awarded the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize for her “tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy."
Summary
The Nobel Peace Prize remains permanently attached to the individual officially awarded it, regardless of who possesses the medal or diploma, the Norwegian Nobel Committee said on Friday, responding to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado’s decision to present her 2025 Peace Prize medal to US President Donald Trump during a White House visit.
In a statement issued from Oslo, the Committee clarified that while the physical symbols of the award, the medal, diploma and prize money, may be gifted, sold or donated, the honour itself is non-transferable.
“Regardless of what may happen to the medal, the diploma, or the prize money, it is and remains the original laureate who is recorded in history as the recipient of the prize,” the Committee said in a statement cited by AFP. Nobel Prizes, it stressed, cannot be revoked, shared or reassigned.
The clarification came a day after Machado said she had “presented” her Nobel Peace Prize medal to Trump, following a meeting at the White House held in the aftermath of the US-backed ouster of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
Trump later confirmed that he had accepted the medal, posting on Truth Social that it was a “wonderful gesture of mutual respect.”
“It was my Great Honor to meet María Corina Machado, of Venezuela, today,” Trump wrote. “María presented me with her Nobel Peace Prize for the work I have done. Such a wonderful gesture of mutual respect. Thank you María!”
The Nobel Committee underlined that there are no restrictions on how laureates choose to use the medal, diploma or prize money they receive. It added that even if these items later come into someone else’s possession, it does not alter the identity of the prize’s recipient.
Machado was awarded the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize for her “tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy."
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The body also said it would not comment “on Peace Prize laureates or the political processes that they are engaged in.”
Over the years, several Nobel laureates, or their families, have donated, sold or displayed their medals elsewhere, without affecting the official record of the award including Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021, sold his medal at auction in 2022 for $103.5 million, the highest amount ever paid for a Nobel medal, and donated the proceeds to UNICEF to support Ukrainian refugee children.
Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, a co-recipient of the Peace Prize in 2001, had his medal donated by his widow, Nane Annan, to the United Nations Office in Geneva in 2024. The medal is now on permanent public display.
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