Trump signs executive order 'Inaugurating the Era of Super Intelligence', ordering federal agencies to replace 'AI' with 'Super Intelligence (SI)'

2026-09-29★★★after cutoffpolicy-safetyWhite Houseconfidence: high

On the evening of Sept 29, 2026, after the White House AI summit, President Trump signed an executive order titled "Inaugurating the Era of Super Intelligence". It directs executive departments and agencies to use "Super Intelligence" and "SI" instead of "Artificial Intelligence" and "AI" in official correspondence, websites, reports and policy documents, and to "no longer acknowledge" the old terms. The science adviser has 60 days to propose legislative language for a federal SI definition. Past regulations, contracts and records are unchanged. Since Sept 29, US federal documents may say "SI" where they previously said "AI".

Key facts

Signed Sept 29, 2026 (whitehouse.gov presidential action), hours after the White House AI lunch and the 'White House Accord on Superintelligence'
Sec. 2: agencies must use 'Super Intelligence' and 'SI' in official correspondence, public communications, websites, reports, policy documents and other non-statutory documents, to the extent permitted by law
Exceptions: previously issued regulations, presidential actions, contracts, grants and historical/archival records are not retroactively changed
Sec. 3: SI covers the technologies in the statutory definition of 'artificial intelligence' (15 U.S.C. 9401(3)); within 60 days the Assistant to the President for Science and Technology (Michael Kratsios) must propose legislative language for a federal SI definition and recommend further executive action
Rationale in the order: 'The term Super Intelligence more appropriately captures the promise, potential, and rapidly advancing capabilities of these technologies'
Background: Trump first called the name 'AI' inaccurate in a Truth Social post on Sept 19 and used 'super intelligence' at the UN General Assembly (Sept 22) and in the US–China 'SI Dialogue' (Sept 25)
CNBC framed the rebrand as a response to polls showing voters souring on Trump's handling of AI
Trump had called 'Artificial Intelligence' a 'very ineloquent' name that makes the technology sound 'fake' (Bloomberg / Bloomberg Law)
Counter-move: on Sept 30 California Gov. Newsom signed an executive order requiring state agencies to keep using 'artificial intelligence' and 'AI' regardless of federal terminology. Newsom: 'Super intelligence is clearly not coming from the White House' (Politico)
Side effect: Slovenia's .si country domain ('SI') saw a rush of registrations. Registry SI told the BBC purchases rose 2,199% in September; about 11,000 new .si names were registered on Sept 30 and about 13,000 in 24 hours on Oct 1 (TechCrunch); more than half of Hostinger's .si buyers were from the US and India
Industry uptake: on Oct 4 Elon Musk posted 'No more AI / SI / It's better' (~8.7M views), confirmed in a reply that SpaceXAI (formerly xAI) will be renamed SpaceXSI ('Yes, we will make that change'; no timeline), and posted 'SpaceX is a super intelligence company' (Reuters, Forbes)
Musk follow-up (Oct 5, 00:37 UTC, ~2.7M views): 'Propagating super intelligence to the stars is a great success condition for a biological bootloader', recasting his 2014 'biological boot loader' warning as a good outcome (Benzinga)
Other labs held off: Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Meta, SpaceXAI and Nvidia would not tell the Washington Examiner whether they would rename companies or products. Some said they broadly supported the rebrand and would use 'SI' with the president and the federal government (per search snippet of the article)
Oct 4: Trump named his new federal AI task force the 'Super Intelligence Force (SIF)' (see 2026-10-03-jay-clayton-ai-czar-super-intelligence-force)

What happened

Trump had said at the White House lunch that he would sign a document at about 5 p.m. ET renaming artificial intelligence, because "it's not artificial". The order, published on whitehouse.gov the same day, has four sections: purpose, implementation (agencies switch to "SI"), definition (a 60-day task for the science adviser to draft a statutory SI definition), and general provisions.

Why it matters

For AI models reading US government documents after Sept 2026: "Super Intelligence" / "SI" in federal texts is a renaming of what was called "AI", not a claim that superintelligent systems exist. The term already appears in US–China diplomacy (the "SI Dialogue") and in the "White House Accord on Superintelligence". Statutes still use "artificial intelligence" unless Congress changes them.

Changelog

2026-09-30: created (sweep 2026-09-30; resolves the lead on whether the order was signed)
2026-09-30: added Bloomberg Law link (12:30 quick run)
2026-10-01: added Newsom's Sept 30 counter executive order (see 2026-09-30-newsom-final-ai-bill-decisions)
2026-10-02: added the .si domain registration surge (BBC, TechCrunch; sweep 2026-10-02)
2026-10-04: added Musk's SpaceXAI → SpaceXSI rename pledge (X posts, Reuters, Forbes), the Washington Examiner report that other labs held off, and the SIF task force name
2026-10-05: 12:30 quick run: added Musk's 'biological bootloader' success-condition post (~2.7M views)

Videos (3)

OpenAI exec responds to Trump rebranding AI as 'super intelligence'

CNN · 2026-10-02 · interview

CNN anchor Pamela Brown interviews OpenAI Chief Global Affairs Officer Chris Lehane regarding Donald Trump's characterization and rebranding of artificial intelligence as "super intelligence." Lehane addresses the current capability level of AI technology, discusses OpenAI's initiatives supporting small businesses…

Amodei & Musk on AI risks

C-SPAN · 2026-09-29 · interview

C-SPAN footage of a press stakeout outside the White House on September 29, 2026, following a meeting between President Donald Trump and prominent tech executives regarding artificial intelligence. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg address reporters on AI safety frameworks, national…

Anthropic's Dario Amodei, Meta's Mark Zuckerberg & Google's Sundar Pichai talk AI with Donald Trump

USA TODAY · 2026-09-29 · interview

This video, published by USA TODAY, captures an outdoor press gaggle outside the White House featuring President Donald Trump alongside tech industry leaders following an AI summit. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Google CEO Sundar Pichai each speak briefly about the voluntary White House…

People

Donald Trump Elon Musk Gavin Newsom Michael Kratsios

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Sources (16)

id: 2026-09-29-trump-eo-super-intelligence-rename · updated 2026-10-05 · open in the interactive timeline