Donald Trump orders renaming of “artificial intelligence” to “superintelligence”.

Donald Trump no longer wants to use the term “artificial intelligence”. Instead, the US President is now talking about “superintelligence”. Last week he even issued a decree ordering American authorities to use only “superintelligence” on their websites and in their official correspondence. In a meeting with senior tech industry officials at the White House last week, he made it clear that he expects them to follow his language.

Nobody has done this as eagerly as Elon Musk. The richest person in the world changed course during the event. Once, when he mentioned AI, he immediately corrected himself and said, “Sorry, SI.” And on Sunday he wrote on Platform X that from now on it should be called SI instead of AI because that is “better”. In response to a question from a user, he even said that he wanted to rename the AI ​​division of his space company SpaceX. In the future it should be called SpaceXSI instead of SpaceXAI. Musk further wrote: “SpaceX is a superintelligence company.”

The fact that Musk is acquiescing to Trump's wishes is remarkable - and a further signal that the two men have become closer again after a brief falling out. Musk also recently sat at a table with Trump during Chinese President Xi Jinping's state banquet at the White House. And just last week, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth appointed him to a new committee that will deal with future warfare. Musk is also getting involved in the election campaign again. According to media reports, he plans to spend more than $100 million to support Republican Party representatives in the November congressional elections.

All of this brings back memories of how Musk helped Trump in the 2024 election campaign and was one of his most important advisors for a time afterwards. Musk spent more than $250 million to help Trump win a second term as US president. After Trump's election victory, Musk got an influential position in the “Department of Government Efficiency” or “DOGE” working group, with which he implemented radical cuts in American authorities. The relationship between Trump and Musk was so close that Musk called himself “First Buddy.”

After a few months, however, there was a highly publicized break. The trigger for this was Musk's criticism of a tax and spending law pushed by Trump. The two men then repeatedly attacked each other, and Trump threatened to withdraw billions in contracts from Musk's company. This meant that Musk's public presence alongside Trump came to an abrupt end. After a while there were signs of reconciliation again. In May, for example, Musk was part of a delegation of American managers who accompanied Trump on a state visit to China.

The new initiative from the Ministry of Defense now gives Musk an official role in the government like in the DOGE era. It is called “Project Meridian” and, according to the Pentagon, is intended to examine how the USA can achieve “absolute technological dominance on the next generation battlefield”. Musk is said to be on the management board responsible for this project; alongside him, Palmer Luckey, the co-founder of the defense company Anduril, will also be another industry representative. The project is initially scheduled to run for 120 days, after which the committee will submit a report with recommendations.

Musk seems to be taking his new job very seriously. According to a report in the New York Times, he has already attended several meetings of the committee in the past week. Like its role in DOGE, Project Meridian is now raising questions about conflicts of interest because SpaceX is receiving contracts from the US government. Musk wrote on

In addition to Musk, CEOs and top managers of companies such as Anthropic, Open AI, Meta, Google and Nvidia also took part in the event with Trump in the White House last week. They signed a kind of voluntary commitment around “superintelligence”, in which they promised, for example, to introduce internal security controls for AI models. Trump called the agreement “morally binding,” but he opposes stricter regulation. In light of several high-profile cyberattacks by AI models, several industry representatives have recently called for greater regulation of AI and a reduction in the pace of development of AI technologies.

Superintelligence has so far been described in the industry as a particularly sophisticated AI that is superior to humans in many respects. Trump now wants to make superintelligence the collective term for all AI technologies. Explaining his renaming decree, he said the best AI systems today do more than mimic or automate human intelligence.

On Sunday, Trump also announced the creation of a new “Super Intelligence Force.” As he wrote on his Truth Social platform, it is intended to ensure that the US maintains its leadership role in this area. This group will be led by Jay Clayton, who also holds the position of American intelligence coordinator.

Clayton also headed the Securities and Exchange Commission during Trump's first term in office. Other members of the panel include Andrew Ferguson, who leads the consumer protection agency FTC, and Emil Michael, the Pentagon's technology chief who formerly worked for the ride-hailing service Uber.