5 times Nobel laureates gave away their gold for money
Donald Trump is now the proud owner of the Nobel Prize after María Corina Machado presented it to him at the White House. Has the Nobel ever been transferred before? A few Nobel laureates have sold their Nobel Prizes in the past.
María Corina Machado gives her Nobel Prize to Donald Trump
Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado presented her Nobel Peace Prize medal to US President Donald Trump at the White House meeting on Thursday. Trump called it "a wonderful gesture of mutual respect", which came weeks after US forces seized Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in Caracas for drug trafficking.
Nobel Committee said award cannot be transferred
The Nobel Committee had clearly stated that the prize cannot be revoked, shared or transferred. Despite this, Trump gladly accepted the award and can be seen sporting a wide smile. However weird it might seem, this is not the first time that a Nobel Prize has been given away. It has been sold for millions of dollars in the past.
Niels Bohr - Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922 - Sold in 1940
The Danish physicist auctioned his gold medal in 1940 to raise money for Finnish War Relief after the Soviet invasion of Finland. He was awarded the Nobel for "his services in the investigation of the structure of atoms and of the radiation emanating from them". During World War II, he donated his medal, which was bought by an anonymous buyer who then gave it to a Danish museum where it remains today.
James Watson - Nobel in Medicine in 1962 - Sold in 2014
While Bohr gave away his Nobel for patriotic reasons, Watson is regarded as the first living Nobel laureate to sell his medal. He was awarded the medal in 1962 for jointly discovering the structure of DNA. Watson sold it for over $4.7 million to a Russian billionaire, Alisher Usmanoval. He said he did it to raise funds for research after he was sidelined by the scientific community following controversy that erupted over his racist remarks. Usmanoval returned the medal to Watson as a gift.
Francis Crick - Nobel in Medicine in 1962 - Sold in 2013
The scientist was the co-winner of the Nobel Prize in Medicine alongside Watson in 1962. His family sold the medal in 2013 for $2.27 million to Jack Wang, CEO of a Chinese biomedical company. The money was given away for scientific research to various institutes, including the Francis Crick Institute in London, and institutes in the UK and the US where Crick worked.
Dmitry Muratov - Nobel Peace Prize in 2021 - Sold in 2022
Dmitry Muratov, Russian journalist and editor of Novaya Gazeta, auctioned the medal to support children in Ukraine affected by the war. It sold for a mind-blowing sum of $103.5 million in June 2022. The funds were given to UNICEF to support Ukrainian child refugees following the Russian invasion the same year.
John Nash - Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1994 - Sold in 2019
The American mathematician received the Economic Sciences Prize for his work in game theory, specifically the Nash equilibrium theory for non-cooperative games. He also introduced the distinction between cooperative games and non-cooperative games. His medal was auctioned in 2019 for $735,000 by Christie's auction house. He passed away in 2015 and his life became the basis for the book A Beautiful Mind and the movie by the same name. The money was used to establish the John Nash Trust to support his legacy and raise awareness for mental health.
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