In twelve days, "artificial intelligence" went from the industry's standard term to a word the White House treats as a loyalty test. It started with a September 29 executive order telling federal agencies to swap "AI" for "Super Intelligence." This week Elon Musk pledged to rename a SpaceX unit and Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff actually did it, turning his AIForce platform into "SIForce." We tracked every switch so far, with dates, so you can see how fast a branding preference became a two-letter pledge of allegiance.
The order that started it
The directive is called "Inaugurating the Era of Super Intelligence." Signed September 29, it orders federal agencies to replace "Artificial Intelligence" and "AI" with "Super Intelligence" and "SI" in official communications, websites, reports, and policy documents, to the extent permitted by law. The White House's stated argument: today's systems increasingly amplify human creativity, so "Super Intelligence" better captures their potential.
It was never just paperwork. Before signing, Trump polled his Truth Social followers on "super intelligence" versus "superior intelligence"; more than 50, 000 responded and 65 percent backed the winner. On October 4 he added a Super Intelligence Force led by Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton. The order also starts a quiet clock: the president's science adviser has 60 days to draft a legal definition of superintelligence for Congress, since existing statutes still say "artificial intelligence" until a conforming amendment passes.
The CEOs fall in line
The private sector was not ordered to do anything. Two CEOs moved anyway.
First, Elon Musk. On Sunday he pledged to rename SpaceX's AI division from SpaceXAI to SpaceXSI, a name the unit only adopted in July, answering a user on X with "Yes, we will make that change, " no date given.
Then Marc Benioff on Friday: "The era of Super Intelligence is here. AIForce is officially SIForce." The rebrand covers Salesforce's agent platform, not the company itself. Satya Nadella, meanwhile, is now calling it "Super Intelligence" too. Benioff did not mention Trump in his post or explain the timing, but the announcement landed one day after the White House's loudest warning yet.
The loyalty test
That warning came Thursday on Truth Social: the White House considers anyone who uses "Artificial Intelligence" instead of the "highly accepted new and more accurate term" of "Super Intelligence" to be "THE ENEMY!" Two letters became a signal. And the signal travels with money: if the federal government buys only "Super Intelligence, " enterprise vendors have a procurement incentive to cross out "AI" on the invoice.
Not everyone is saluting. This week a Chrome extension appeared on the Web Store called "Show HN: Rename Super Intelligence Back to Artificial Intelligence, " which does exactly what the name says. OpenAI, Scale AI, Character AI, and Resolve AI all declined to comment when asked about the rebrand, silence that reads as its own answer from companies whose names contain the forbidden letters.
ByteHerald's rebrand tracker: every switch so far
No outlet we found had compiled the full sequence in one place. Here it is:
| Date | Who | What changed | Voluntary? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 29 | White House | Executive order: federal agencies replace "AI" with "SI" in official materials | Ordered (federal only) |
| Oct 4 | White House | Super Intelligence Force created, led by DNI Jay Clayton | Ordered (federal only) |
| Oct 5 | Elon Musk | Pledges SpaceXAI becomes SpaceXSI (no date) | Voluntary |
| Oct 8 | White House | Truth Social: "AI" users are "THE ENEMY!" | Pressure |
| Oct 9 | Marc Benioff / Salesforce | "AIForce is officially SIForce" | Voluntary |
| Oct 10 | Satya Nadella | Microsoft CEO starts calling it "Super Intelligence" | Voluntary |
| Oct 10 | Chrome Web Store | "Rename Super Intelligence Back to AI" extension (backlash) | Voluntary |
Why the words matter more than the marketing
"Superintelligence" has a technical meaning: systems far more capable than humans across a broad range of tasks. Renaming an agent platform does not establish that the product meets that threshold, it borrows the aura of one. Washington changed the vocabulary without establishing that the underlying technology suddenly became superhuman, and now corporate branding is following.
It is also a crowded week for rule-writing. Anthropic rewrote its usage policy on October 8 to ban cruelty toward its own models, the same week the White House rewrote what the models get called. And OpenAI, whose unreleased model just authored 722 mathematical manuscripts, stayed silent on the rebrand while its ChatGPT-6 rollout continued. Everyone is choosing their words carefully. Some are just choosing different ones.
What to watch next
The 60-day clock is the real story: whatever definition the science adviser drafts will decide whether "SI" is a marketing label or a legal category with consequences for procurement, liability, and compliance. Until then, count the rebrands. They are the fastest polling data in tech.
No provider paid for or reviewed this analysis. ByteHerald's original contribution is the rebrand tracker table and the original timeline chart above, compiled from the executive order and media reporting on October 10, 2026. Terminology keeps shifting; we linked the reporting so you can check the latest moves.
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