Nobel Foundation Panics After Machado Gifts Trump Her Award, Says Prize Cannot Be ‘Passed On’

The foundation that awards the Nobel Peace Prize has clarified that a Nobel, once awarded, cannot be “passed on.”

The Nobel Foundation made a statement on the non-transferability of its awards after Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado gifted her 2025 Nobel Peace Prize to President Donald Trump last week. The clarifications suggest that the foundation is concerned with being connected to the President of the United States despite numerous world leaders nominating Trump himself to receive a peace prize.

“One of the core missions of the Nobel Foundation is to safeguard the dignity of the Nobel Prizes and their administration,” the foundation said in a statement on Sunday.

“The Foundation upholds Alfred Nobel’s will and its stipulations. It states that the prizes shall be awarded to those who ‘have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind,’ and it specifies who has the right to award each respective prize. A prize can therefore not, even symbolically, be passed on or further distributed,” it said.

The statement followed a release the foundation published on Friday explaining the symbolism behind the award and how, no matter what happens to the physical prize itself, the original recipient of the prize is always considered a Nobel laureate.

“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 release states. “Even if the medal or diploma later comes into someone else’s possession, this does not alter who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.”

“A laureate cannot share the prize with others, nor transfer it once it has been announced. A Nobel Peace Prize can also never be revoked. The decision is final and applies for all time,” it continues.

The Nobel Foundation’s repeated clarifications on the Nobel symbolism come after Trump received the Nobel Prize from Machado, who gave Trump her prize after the United States used military force to raid Venezuela and arrest and extradite former dictator Nicolás Maduro. Maduro is imprisoned in New York on charges related to drug trafficking.

“I presented the president of the United States the medal, the Nobel Peace Prize,” Machado told reporters after meeting with Trump at the White House, “as a recognition for his unique commitment with our freedom.”

Netflix CEO Says He Won’t Shorten Theatrical Releases Following Warner Bros. Acquisition

Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos dispelled rumors that he would shorten theatrical release times after the streaming giant acquires Warner Bros.

The entertainment exec said as much during an interview with The New York Times published Friday.

“When this deal closes, we will own a theatrical distribution engine that is phenomenal and produces billions of dollars of theatrical revenue that we don’t want to put at risk. We will run that business largely like it is today, with 45-day windows,” Sarandos told the outlet.

“I’m giving you a hard number. If we’re going to be in the theatrical business, and we are, we’re competitive people — we want to win. I want to win opening weekend. I want to win box office,” he added.

Sarandos went on to say that “a lot of assumptions” that Netflix execs had about Warner Bros. weren’t true.

“The general economics of the theatrical business were more positive than we had seen and we had modeled for ourselves. It’s a healthy, profitable business for them. We weren’t in that business not because we hated it. We weren’t in that business because our business was doing so well.”

Netflix’s anticipated acquisition of Warner Bros., which would include its film and television studios, HBO Max, and HBO, is valued at $82.7 billion. Industry insiders and fans have pushed back on the merger, saying it could deal a huge blow to movie theaters. Rumors started circulating that Netflix planned to shorten theatrical release times from 45 days to just 17 days, similar to what Universal does for some of its releases.

Sarandos told NYT that he anticipated this type of response. “I think [the backlash] was a lot of loud voices, but not necessarily a lot of them,” the Netflix CEO said. “I think a lot of it was folks who questioned, rightfully so, our intent with theatrical because we hadn’t said anything about it. A lot of it was the emotions around that more than anything else.”

During the same interview, Sarandos addressed comments he made in 2025 about theaters being “outmoded” for people outside of large cities.

“You have to listen to that quote again. I said ‘outmoded for some.’ I mean, like the town that ‘Sinners’ is supposed to be set in does not have a movie theater there,” he said. “For those folks, it’s certainly outmoded. You’re not going to get in the car and go to the next town to go see a movie. But my daughter lives in Manhattan. She could walk to six multiplexes, and she’s in the theaters twice a week. Not outmoded for her at all.”

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