Both Elon Musk and Adolf Hitler Have Been Nominated for Nobel Peace Prizes — How? Who Nominates Them?

Since the first Nobel Prizes were awarded in 1901, there have definitely been some questionable choices made. For example, Portuguese neurologist Egas Moniz won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1949 for his assertion that lobotomies can treat mental illness. Richard Smalley was a chemist and Nobel laureate who later spent much of his career criticizing evolution.

Obviously, not all of the winners are duds. Marie Curie was the first person to win two Nobel Prizes after she discovered radium and polonium. One was in physics in 1903, and the other in chemistry in 1911. Despite being a thing for over 120 years, Nobel Prizes feel very mysterious to those of us outside of that world. There are six Nobel Prize categories, and the Peace one feels the most puzzling. Who nominates people for the Nobel Peace Prize? Here's what we know.

The candidate can be a person, organization, or institution, and they must be living. Sadly there are no posthumous Nobel Peace Prize awards. These nominations have to be submitted by members of national governments, assemblies, international courts, university professors, or organizations that have previously won the Nobel Peace Prize. So, who meets the criteria? Great question.

The people or organizations that have been submitted for a Nobel Peace Prize must be dedicated to promoting peace, human rights, and other similar values. According to Alfred Nobel, this includes disarmament, peace congresses, and brotherhood between nations. That has since been expanded to include human rights, humanitarian work, and sustainable development as well as environmental work.

Although Adolf Hitler was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, it was allegedly a joke though no one found it to be funny. According to the Nobel Peace Center, in January 1939 the Swedish Parliamentarian and Social Democrat Erik Brandt sent a letter to the Norwegian Nobel Committee, nominating the German Chancellor Adolf Hitler for the Nobel Peace Prize. He did this in response to British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's nomination but later said that Hitler's nomination was ironic.

In January 2025, Elon Musk was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Branko Grims, a Slovenian politician who was elected as a member of the European Parliament in 2024. In a post to X, he shared a screenshot of an email confirming the submission. Branko wrote, "The proposal that Mr. Elon Musk, for his consistent support for the fundamental human right of freedom of speech and thus for peace, receives the Nobel Peace Prize 2025, was successfully submitted today. Sincere thanks to all the co-proposers and everyone who helped with this challenging project!"