他被指控脱离现实、为自己和家人谋取私利、在白宫建造豪华舞厅，并在选举临近之际，忽视那些将他送上权力宝座的选民所面临的困境。唐纳德·特朗普是时候证明他仍然心系民众了吗？显然不是。
He stands accused of being out of touch, enriching himself and his family, building a lavish White House ballroom and, with elections looming, neglecting the hardships of the voters who brought him to power. Time for Donald Trump to show he still has the common touch? Nope.
周四，这位美国总统前往一座以他本人命名的建筑，向全球首富——他昔日的“敌友”埃隆·马斯克——以及其他科技亿万富翁颁发奖项，甚至还领取了一项本属于他已故叔叔的奖项。
On Thursday, the US president went to a building he named after himself, dished out awards to the world’s richest person – his old frenemy Elon Musk – and other tech billionaires and even received an award that belonged to his late uncle.
鉴于特朗普对黄金的痴迷，这场活动自然被命名为“美国创新黄金时代”峰会。然而，在他执政期间，众多机构和学院在科学研究领域遭受了数十亿美元的削减，这一事实恐怕会让他们感到意外。
Given Trump’s gold fetish, the event was naturally entitled the Golden Age of American Innovation summit, which will be news to the many agencies and academies suffering billions of dollars in cuts to scientific research on his watch.
“难得的是，今天我们的听众智商极高，”这位总统在华盛顿的“唐纳德·J·特朗普和平研究所”对约300位受邀嘉宾说道。而他从未对那些排队数小时参加他竞选集会的民众表达过类似的赞美。
“We have an extremely high-IQ audience for a change,” the president told about 300 invited guests at the Donald J Trump Institute of Peace in Washington, a compliment he never pays to the crowds who line up for hours to attend his campaign rallies.
站在白色背景板和一排美国国旗前的总统发表了一场敷衍的演讲，并罕见地紧紧盯着提词器。他提到了人工超级智能，却避而不谈这些科技巨头正在全国范围内建造的数据中心，并因此实现了民主党与共和党罕见地达成一致的壮举——他们都对数据中心深恶痛绝。
Standing on a podium with a white backdrop and series of US flags, the president gave a perfunctory speech, sticking unusually close to his teleprompter. He made references to artificial super intelligence but steered clear of the datacentres these tech overlords are erecting all over the country and, in the process, achieving the unique feat of getting Democrats and Republicans to agree on how much they hate them.
随后，白宫科学技术政策办公室主任迈克尔·克拉齐奥斯向特朗普播放了一段关于他叔叔约翰·特朗普博士的视频。约翰·特朗普是一位电气工程师，也是麻省理工学院的教授，于1983年荣获国家科学奖章。
Michael Kratsios, director of the White House office of science and technology policy, then treated Trump to a video about his uncle, Dr John Trump, an electrical engineer and professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who received the National Medal of Science in 1983.
这段短片声称，约翰·特朗普的研究成果催生了“首次用于癌症放射治疗的X射线发生器”，并且“他的雷达在1944年D日当天干扰了德国的防御系统”。这些说法多少也体现了他侄子对“真实夸张”的偏爱。
The short film’s claims that John Trump’s research produced X-ray generators “used for the first radiation treatments for cancer” and that “his radars jammed German defences” on D-day in 1944 owe something to his nephew’s fondness for “truthful hyperbole”.
六年前，这位信奉“优良基因”和“赛马理论”的总统曾表示，他叔叔的遗产将有助于他抗击新冠疫情：“他是一位伟大的超级天才——约翰·特朗普博士。我喜欢这些东西，我真的理解。人们很惊讶我懂这些。所有这些医生都问：‘你怎么会知道这么多？’也许我天生就有这种能力。或许我当初应该选择这条路，而不是竞选总统。”
Six years ago, the president, who believes in “good genes” and “racehorse theory”, suggested that his uncle’s legacy would help him fight the Covid-19 pandemic: “He was a great super genius. Dr John Trump. I like this stuff. I really get it. People are surprised that I understand it. Every one of these doctors said: ‘How do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability. Maybe I should have done that instead of running for president.”
克拉齐奥斯为这位老板准备了一个惊喜。在观众热烈的掌声中，他将特朗普叔叔的国家级科学奖章装裱得十分精美，并呈献给了特朗普。特朗普看起来相当高兴，不过很明显，这枚奖章还无法取代他奖杯柜中那枚华而不实的国际足联和平奖。在登台领取科技成就奖的六位科技领袖中，有五位是移民。
Kratsios had a surprise for the boss. He presented Trump with his uncle’s National Medal of Science in a handsome frame as the audience clapped. He looked happy enough, though it was clear this won’t displace the gaudy Fifa peace prize from his trophy cabinet. Among the six tech leaders who came up on stage to receive an award for scientific and technological achievement, five were immigrants.
这位“美国优先”的总统将国家级科学奖章授予了SpaceX首席执行官马斯克（出生于南非）、谷歌联合创始人谢尔盖·布林（俄罗斯）、人工智能芯片制造商英伟达的创始人黄仁勋（台湾）——该公司是全球市值最高的企业，以及半导体公司超微半导体（AMD）的负责人苏姿丰（台湾）。
The “America first” president gave the National Medal of Science to SpaceX chief executive Musk (born in South Africa); Google co-founder Sergey Brin (Russia); Jensen Huang (Taiwan), whose AI chip maker Nvidia is the world’s most valuable company; and Lisa Su (Taiwan), head of the semiconductor company Advanced Micro Devices.
特朗普还将国家级技术与创新奖章授予了微软首席执行官萨提亚·纳德拉（印度）和戴尔科技集团首席执行官迈克尔·戴尔（德克萨斯州）。几个小时前，JD万斯刚刚宣布微软被暂停参与一项允许企业为外国工人担保绿卡的计划。
Trump also handed the National Medal of Technology and Innovation to Microsoft supremo Satya Nadella (India) and Dell Technologies chief executive Michael Dell (Texas). Hours earlier, JD Vance had announced Microsoft’s suspension from a programme allowing companies to sponsor foreign workers for green cards.
万亿富翁马斯克身穿深色西装、白色衬衫和白色领带。特朗普拍着他的背，把奖章递给他，又拍了一次，然后向他展示了一张证书，并再次拍了一下。在早些时候的讲话中，总统称马斯克为“工业巨头”“杰出的工程师”“国家宝藏”和“现代版托马斯·爱迪生”。他还评论道：“这一切对埃隆来说都挺顺利的，对吧？”这两人的关系比雷特·巴特勒和斯嘉丽·奥哈拉还要复杂。
The trillionaire Musk was wearing a dark suit, white shirt and white tie. Trump gave him a pat on the back, handed him the medal and gave him another pat, then showed him a certificate and patted him once more. In earlier remarks, the president called Musk an “industrial titan”, “brilliant engineer”, “national treasure” and “modern day Thomas Edison”. He observed: “It all works out well for Elon, right?”These guys’ relationship is more complicated than Rhett Butler and Scarlett O’Hara.
马斯克帮助特朗普赢得了2024年的选举，并让狗狗币（Doge）成为削弱调查其公司事务的联邦机构的有效工具。据《时代》杂志报道，在马斯克开发的Grok聊天机器人准确预测到普通委内瑞拉人将庆祝尼古拉斯·马杜罗下台后，总统认为它非常巧妙。
Musk helped buy the 2024 election for Trump and found Doge a useful vehicle to gut the federal agencies investigating his companies. The president considered Musk’s Grok chatbot ingenious after it accurately predicted that ordinary Venezuelans would celebrate the removal of leader Nicolás Maduro, according to Time magazine.
随后，两人爆发了激烈的矛盾。马斯克在他自己的X平台上发帖称：“是时候扔下真正的大炸弹了：[特朗普]在爱泼斯坦的文件里。这才是这些文件迟迟未公开的真正原因。”结果发现，两人都在这些文件中。
Then came their explosive falling out, with Musk tweeting on his own X platform: “Time to drop the really big bomb: [Trump] is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public.”It turned out both men were in the files.
据报道，万斯在两位巨星级人物之间促成了停火。他们之间的“铁哥们”情谊从未完全恢复，但周四的事件证明，权力和财富无法彼此分离——尤其是在距离选举不到一个月、特朗普支持率低迷的情况下。
Vance reportedly brokered a truce between the two titanic egos. The bromance has never been fully rekindled, but Thursday was proof that power and wealth can’t live without each other – especially with elections less than a month away and Trump’s approval rating in the doldrums.
然而，当仪式结束时，留在舞台上与特朗普并肩的却是AI之王黄仁勋，此时乡村人民乐队（Village People）的《YMCA》熟悉的旋律从扬声器中响起（“年轻人，当你手头拮据时……”这句歌词显然没有引起现场观众的共鸣）。两人互相指指点点，指挥着人群，显然是在为拍照做准备，并且对自己感到满意。这是两位世界主宰者的一个恰如其分的闭幕画面——他们或许最终会找到一种人工智能超级智能的方式，来摧毁这个世界。
When the ceremony was over, however, it was AI king Huang who remained on stage alongside Trump as the familiar strains of the Village People’s YMCA blasted from loudspeakers (“Young man, when you’re short on your dough,” did not resonate with this crowd). The pair were pointing and directing people, presumably for a photo op, and looking pleased with themselves. It was a fitting closing image of two men who rule the world and may yet find a artificial super intelligent way to destroy it.