Kings Rename the Product, CEOs Fall In Line

Elon Musk renamed his rocket company's AI division SpaceXSI. That's the whole story, really. A president decreed that "super intelligence" must replace "artificial intelligence" inside executive branch departments and agencies, and about a month later the richest men in tech were saying it back to him on earnings calls.

The order came on Sept. 29, while Donald Trump was hosting an AI luncheon at the White House for industry leaders. He was, per the base reporting, working to ensure AI's growth in the U.S. with limited regulations. This week he went further, announcing on Truth Social that he's banning "AI" and "artificial intelligence" in "all relevant documents" and "everything else." Everything else. A man who can't ban a word from your kitchen table is trying anyway.

Who Has the Power

Musk obeyed fast. On Tesla's call, talking up humanoid robots, he said: "Some of them look very impressive, but they're not really using any kind of advanced AI or SI." Mark Zuckerberg followed on Meta's Oct. 21 call, stressing his company's "goal of delivering personal superintelligence to everyone." Meta already had a unit called Meta Superintelligence Labs, created last year, so the new vocabulary cost him nothing.

Musk and Zuckerberg are described as perhaps the fiercest supporters of the Trump administration among tech's CEOs, but they're not alone. Leaders of all the tech giants have contributed to Trump's inauguration festivities or his plan for the White House ballroom. Some have been intentional about getting rid of diversity, equity and inclusion programs the president opposed. That's the tribute economy: pay for the party, pay for the ballroom, scrap the programs, and the regulations stay light.

What They're Calling "Order"

The holdouts aren't exactly rebels. Amazon's Andy Jassy said "AI" well over a dozen times in his opening remarks Thursday. Microsoft's Satya Nadella said a day earlier that one of the company's three focus points is "designing AI to empower people." Alphabet's Sundar Pichai said "AI" seconds into his commentary.

But look at the paperwork. Microsoft's annual report, filed last week, mentions "super intelligence" eight times, starting at the top of the letter to shareholders. "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," Nadella wrote. Talk one way to analysts, write the other way where it's filed. Hedge both directions.

IBM's Arvind Krishna, who skipped the September lunch, used "SI" alongside "AI" on his call. Intel's Lip-Bu Tan blamed the chip supply shortage on "unprecedented demand for super intelligence." Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora kept saying "SI" on CNBC and posted on X on Sept. 30: "The meeting at the WH on SI was an epic moment." Nvidia's Jensen Huang, who runs the world's most valuable company, praised the "White House Accord on Super Intelligence" and wrote that its future "will be shaped not only by what it can do, but by the confidence it earns."

Confidence it earns. From the man selling the chips.

The Election Trap

Timing matters here. The rebrand lands just ahead of next week's midterm elections, with the Republican Party in jeopardy of losing both the House and Senate. Trump's job approval has been dropping, and his economic approval rating just hit an all-time low, according to the latest CNBC All-America Economic Survey. So the ballot box may shuffle the names on the door, while the executives who bankroll ballrooms and the officials who rename technologies by decree keep trading favors in the same room.

Notice who's absent from every quote in this story. Nobody who'll live under these systems got a word in. The workers whose jobs get automated, the communities hosting the data centers, the people who'll be scored and sorted by whatever it's called this week: none of them were at the luncheon, and none of them were on the earnings calls. They were handed a new word and told it was the future.