Trump declares anyone not calling AI 'super intelligence' is 'the enemy'

President Donald Trump has escalated his campaign to rebrand artificial intelligence, declaring on October 8, 2026, that the White House considers anyone using the term "AI" instead of "Super Intelligence" (SI) to be "THE ENEMY." The declaration follows a September 29 executive order mandating federal agencies adopt the term. While tech figures like Elon Musk have agreed to rename units like SpaceXAI to SpaceXSI, and Jeff Bezos has backed the term, others like OpenAI's Sam Altman refuse to rename their firms. Legal experts warn that enforcing this language on private citizens would violate the First Amendment.

Trump's directive to rename AI

• ▪President Donald Trump declared on Truth Social on October 8, 2026, that the White House considers anyone who uses the term "Artificial Intelligence" instead of "Super Intelligence" to be "THE ENEMY!"
• ▪Donald Trump proposed renaming artificial intelligence during a Truth Social poll on September 19, 2026, and in a United Nations General Assembly speech on September 22, 2026, arguing that the word "artificial" makes the technology sound fake.
• ▪Donald Trump signed an executive order on September 29, 2026, directing federal departments and agencies to use "Super Intelligence" and "SI" in place of "Artificial Intelligence" and "AI" in official communications.

Federal agency implementation of the directive

• ▪The U.S. Justice Department instructed its staff on October 6, 2026, to use the term "super intelligence" in official communications and court filings when appropriate.
• ▪The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy website continued to refer to "artificial intelligence" as of October 8, 2026, despite Donald Trump's directive.
• ▪The White House updated its AI.gov website on October 8, 2026, to display "SI.gov" in a large font, though the actual URL remained AI.gov and the SI.gov domain led to an error page.

Tech industry responses to the renaming

• ▪OpenAI CEO Sam Altman stated that OpenAI has no plans to rename the company, though OpenAI will continue to discuss super intelligence.
• ▪Amazon founder Jeff Bezos expressed support for the term "SI" in a Fox News interview, stating that "artificial" is not a flattering descriptor.
• ▪Elon Musk announced on October 4, 2026, that the SpaceX unit SpaceXAI, which was formed in July 2026 after absorbing xAI, will be renamed SpaceXSI to align with the new terminology.
• ▪Nvidia CEO Jensen Wang corrected himself to use "SI" instead of "AI" during a White House panel discussion standing near Donald Trump.

Legal challenges to speech coercion

• ▪In a 2025 naming dispute over Donald Trump's order to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the "Gulf of America," the Associated Press successfully sued for restored press access after being barred by the White House.
• ▪The Supreme Court ruled unanimously in NRA v. Vullo in May 2024 that government officials cannot coerce private parties to punish or suppress disfavored speech.
• ▪Legal experts and commentators noted that Donald Trump's threat to penalize private entities for using the term "artificial intelligence" would constitute a First Amendment violation if enforced.

Slovenian domain rush

• ▪Slovenia's web registry logged 46,066 new .si domain registrations in September 2026, representing a significant surge following Donald Trump's initial proposal to rename AI to SI.
• ▪Cybersecurity firm Netcraft found that just over half of the .si domains registered at Dynadot between Donald Trump's September 19, 2026, poll and his September 22, 2026, speech were listed for resale.

Traditional definition of superintelligence

• ▪In the technology industry, "superintelligence" traditionally denotes a hypothetical future system that surpasses human cognitive abilities, rather than current artificial intelligence technologies.
• ▪Senator Bernie Sanders introduced the Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act in September 2026, using the traditional definition of the term to propose restrictions on powerful AI systems.

Debatable claims

• ▪Trump's executive order mandating the term "super intelligence" is a justified use of executive power
• ▪Prioritizing rapid AI development over safety regulations does more harm than good
• ▪"Super intelligence" is a more accurate term for current technology than "artificial intelligence"
• ▪The president should not pressure private companies to adopt government-preferred terminology