The Nobel Foundation Sunday said one of its core missions was to safeguard the dignity of the Nobel Prizes and their administration, in line with Alfred Nobel’s will.
In a statement, the Foundation stressed that the prizes are awarded to those who “have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind” and that a prize cannot be transferred or further distributed.
Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, last year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner, gave her medal to Trump during a meeting on Thursday.
The Foundation's clarification followed remarks issued a day earlier by the Norwegian Nobel Committee, which said the Nobel Peace Prize remains “inseparably linked” to the person or organisation that won it, regardless of what happens to the physical symbols of the award.
The White House later released a photograph showing Trump holding a gold-coloured framed display of the medal, with an official saying the US president intended to keep it.
Machado’s Nobel award also includes a diploma and prize money of 11 million Swedish crowns, around $1.19 million.
The Nobel Committee said that irrespective of the fate of the medal, diploma or prize money, the original laureate remains the recipient recorded in history.
“There are no restrictions in the statutes of the Nobel Foundation on what a laureate may do with the medal, the diploma, or the prize money,” the committee said.
This means a laureate is free to keep, give away, sell or donate these items. However, it added that the honour and recognition of the prize itself remain permanently tied to the designated laureate.
The five-member committee said the medal and diploma are physical symbols confirming that an individual or organisation has been awarded the prize, but they do not alter the identity of the laureate.
It also noted that it does not comment on a winner’s statements, decisions or actions after the prize has been announced.
The committee did not name either Trump or Machado in its statement.
This is not the first time a Nobel laureate has parted with their medal. In 1943, Nobel literature laureate Knut Hamsun gave his medal to Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels.
In 2022, Nobel Peace Prize winner Dmitry Muratov sold his medal for $100 million to raise funds for UNICEF to support Ukrainian refugee children.
In 2024, the widow of former UN secretary general Kofi Annan donated his 2001 Nobel Peace Prize medal and diploma to the United Nations office in Geneva.