US President Donald Trump has once again stirred controversy, this time by claiming credit for the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics. The award was given earlier this month to three scientists for their groundbreaking research in quantum mechanics, but Trump claims that their achievement was partly because of his administration’s focus on advanced science and technology.

In a post on his social media platform, Truth Social, on October 30, Trump shared a message from his Energy Secretary Chris Wright, who praised the Nobel win. Wright’s post read, “A former Lawrence Berkeley National Lab scientist won the Nobel Prize in Physics for work in quantum physics. Quantum computing, along with AI and fusion, are the three signature Trump science efforts. Trump 47 racks up his first Nobel Prize!!” Trump reposted it, appearing to celebrate the Nobel victory as his own achievement.

The Nobel Prize in Physics this year went to John Clarke (83), a British physicist who worked at the Department of Energy’s Berkeley Lab and is now an emeritus professor at the University of California, Berkeley; Michel Devoret (72) of Yale University; and John Martinis (67) of the University of California, Santa Barbara. Their pioneering experiments in the 1980s laid the foundation for the development of modern quantum computing technology.

Trump’s remarks quickly sparked backlash. Critics accused him of trying to take credit for scientific work that happened decades before his presidency. California Governor Gavin Newsom, who has been engaged in political spats with Trump, mocked him on X (formerly Twitter), calling his claims “pathetic.”

Meanwhile, Nobel laureate John Martinis responded humorously to Trump’s claim. In a statement to The Daily Beast, he said, “This work was done in 1985, so I suppose you should credit another Republican, Ronald Reagan.”

 However, Martinis also acknowledged that the Trump administration had shown some support for quantum computing research during his term. While Trump continues to frame himself as a champion of scientific innovation, his attempt to link his presidency to the Nobel-winning research has been widely seen as an exaggeration.