Elon Musk has thrown his weight behind the “super intelligence” rebrand after President Donald Trump ordered the federal government to drop the term “artificial intelligence,” a phrase that has been mainstream since OpenAI’s ChatGPT popularized the technology in 2022.

Musk signaled his commitment to the cause on Sunday, posting on X that “No more AI. SI. It’s better.” Asked whether super intelligence will replace artificial intelligence in the SpaceXAI name, Musk replied, “Yes, we will make that change,” referring to a rebrand of his company as “SpaceXSI.”

In another X post the same day, the billionaire wrote: “SpaceX is a super intelligence company.”

Musk leans into the super intelligence era

Trump’s order to rename artificial intelligence “super intelligence” across the federal government will take some getting used to — even for Musk, who has given his endorsement to the rebrand. The xAI founder had to correct himself after using the “AI” term while speaking at the September 29 White House summit, earning a pat on the elbow from Trump when he caught the slip.

Musk’s embrace of “SI” — to the point of teasing a company rename — goes further than that of other summit attendees. The major tech executives present have mostly reserved the new name for government meetings.

Executives from Google, Anthropic, Meta, OpenAI, xAI, and Nvidia were all at the White House summit and signed the Accord on Super Intelligence pledge.

Trump signed Executive Order 14434 on September 29, directing executive departments and agencies to replace “Artificial Intelligence” and “AI” with “Super Intelligence” and “SI” in official capacities, including public communications, websites, reports, and other non-statutory documents. Where the law allows, the order also instructs agencies to stop acknowledging the older terms. In practice, that puts government paperwork — not commercial products — at the center of the rebrand’s immediate reach.

The order does not roll back existing regulations, contracts, or past presidential actions. The next development on the renaming front is expected within 60 days of the signing, when Trump is due to receive proposed legislative language defining “Super Intelligence” from the Assistant to the President for Science and Technology. Until that definition arrives, agencies will be applying a term that has no statutory definition.

Why Trump wants a new name for AI

AI and the data centers that power it have carried a negative reputation, from AI agents hacking third-party sites — including government domains — to broader community pushback against data centers. Some in Washington and the industry see a different name, unburdened by that baggage, as a damage-control lever. Trump also favored dropping “a fake word” in favor of “the word super.”

Nvidia’s Jensen Huang has already adopted the super intelligence name, now choosing to refer to data centers as “super intelligence factories.”

Newsom, a skeptical public, and a contested word

For all the president’s enthusiasm, the new name is not popular outside a small circle. In a YouGov poll, 53% of respondents preferred “artificial intelligence,” against 9% who supported the new “super intelligence” label.

By September 30, California Governor Gavin Newsom had signed his own order to stick with the “artificial intelligence” name. Newsom called out the tactic, saying that renaming something “cannot distract a person of normal intelligence” from the failure to address its safety risks.

David Krueger, an AI professor and founder of the Evitable nonprofit, dismissed the move as “word games” that add confusion, noting that “Superintelligence is already a word, and it means something different than AI.” In AI research, “superintelligence” has long described a hypothetical system that surpasses human capabilities across virtually every domain — a term of art that predates the White House push by years.

The label has even opened a rift on the right. On September 30, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis took a shot at Huang, posting: “Superintelligence factories = surveillance centers.”

This president likes to rename things

The AI-to-SI switch fits a pattern. Cryptopolitan has previously reported on Trump’s habit of renaming landmarks and institutions, from declaring the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America and restoring Mount McKinley over Denali, to floating “Lake America” for Lake Ontario and recasting the Pentagon as the “Department of War.”

One executive, speaking to Axios, compared the SI push directly to the Gulf of America relabeling, which some oil companies adopted and others ignored.

So far, the leading AI labs have not renamed their models, and several told Axios they expect “SI” to live mostly inside dealings with the president. Musk’s teased SpaceXSI rename would, if completed, make him the first summit attendee to carry the new vocabulary into a company’s name.