Trump’s campaign against the phrase “artificial intelligence” began as a rhetorical flourish and has quickly become an administrative directive — and, increasingly, a test of allegiance.

At the United Nations on Sept. 22, Trump argued that the word “artificial” made intelligence sound “fake” and promised to replace it with “super intelligence.” The move fitted a broader pro-development stance: Trump has argued that AI safety concerns are overstated and that the United States should accelerate development and data-center construction. Critics counter that a sunnier label will not erase public anxiety about the technology or settle the underlying debate over its risks.¹

A Sept. 29 executive order then instructed federal agencies to substitute “Super Intelligence” and “SI” for “Artificial Intelligence” and “AI” in official communications where legally possible. The order adopts the existing federal definition of AI, however — a contradiction that underscores the central criticism of the rebrand. In technical usage, superintelligence generally means a hypothetical system that exceeds human ability across a broad range of tasks, not simply the AI tools already in widespread use.²

By Thursday, Trump had escalated the linguistic campaign into a political warning, declaring that anyone using the older term was “THE ENEMY!”² Yet the White House’s own digital footprint revealed the limits of the decree: its site displayed “SI.gov,” while the underlying address remained AI.gov, and other administration pages still referred to artificial intelligence.²

The terminology is now leaking beyond Washington. Salesforce chief executive Marc Benioff said Friday that the company’s AIForce platform would become SIForce, writing, “The era of Super Intelligence is here.” Elon Musk had also pledged to rename SpaceXAI as SpaceXSI. Neither move changes what the products can do — but both show how a presidential branding push is beginning to reshape corporate language.³