It turns out the only thing more sycophantic than AI chatbots are the people in charge of building them.
After president Donald Trump decreed that artificial intelligence should now be referred to as “Super Intelligence” (caps included), tech and AI CEOs — or should we say “SI” CEOs — have eagerly complied with this absurd rebranding attempt.
An analysis by CNBC found that Microsoft, SpaceX, Meta, Tesla, and IBM all used the term “Super Intelligence” or “SI” in official documents and communications this earnings season. One SpaceX filing referred to SI 85 times. Microsoft, in an annual report letter, even heralded the arrival of a “Super Intelligence era.”
“For Microsoft, the central question as we enter this Super Intelligence era is not just how big the opportunity becomes, but how we deliver the real-world outcomes that every country, community, and company demands and deserves,” CEO Satya Nadella wrote in the letter.
Trump’s obsession with rebranding AI seemed to come out of nowhere. Last month, he launched a poll on his website Truth Social asking his supporters to choose a better name for AI. Days later, he told the UN General Assembly that all US government documents will ditch the term AI in favor of SI, and made the decree official with an executive order. This week, he escalated proceedings by saying he would be “officially BANNING” the term AI in government documents and “everything else.”
That tech leaders have embraced using SI encapsulates the extraordinary toadying that they have continued to show Trump since he returned to the Oval Office, including those whom Trump once perceived as an enemy.
Perhaps the most enthusiastic adopter of the new moniker is SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who remains closely tied to the administration. He has insisted on using the term SI in all his public appearances and posts (with occasional slip-ups), and rebranded his AI company SpaceXAI as SpaceXSI. Recently, Musk even admitted that he has “SI psychosis.”
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, meanwhile, called Super Intelligence a “more accurate” term than artificial intelligence, but shot down the idea of rebranding OpenAI as OpenSI. In general, he has sounded skeptical about the rebrand’s usefulness.
“I think people are going to keep calling it AI,” he told Politico.
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