Trump's super intelligence rebrand: Why Musk, Benioff signed on

Two letters have become a loyalty test. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff announced Friday that his company's AIForce platform is now SIForce, days after Elon Musk promised to turn SpaceXAI into SpaceXSI. Both moves trace back to Trump's super intelligence rebrand, and neither company was ordered to make them.

The September 29 directive, called “Inaugurating the Era of Super Intelligence", covers federal agencies only. They must switch “Artificial Intelligence” and “AI” for “Super Intelligence” and “SI” in their communications, websites, reports, and policy papers, as permitted by the statute. The congressional statutes remain as is until Congress passes the conforming amendment.

An additional clock that may have gone unnoticed is present: The science advisor to the president has 60 days to formulate the legal definition of superintelligence.

"The era of super intelligence is here," Benioff wrote on X. The change covers Salesforce's agent platform, not the company's corporate name.

Musk answered a user on X with "Yes, we will make that change" and gave no date. SpaceXAI is a name the unit only adopted in July.

On Thursday, Trump wrote on Truth Social that the White House considers anyone who says "Artificial Intelligence" "THE ENEMY!" Before signing the order, he had asked Truth Social users to choose between "super intelligence" and "superior intelligence". More than 50,000 responded, and 65 per cent backed the winner.

On October 4, he added a Super Intelligence Force, led by Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton.

The phrase is normally used for systems which have abilities beyond those of humans on many different tasks. A company having a name for its product does not mean that the product passes that criteria. Some companies with names containing "AI", including OpenAI, Scale AI, Character AI, and Resolve AI, declined to comment.