Elon Musk has revealed he will rename one of his companies to SpaceXSI after Donald Trump ordered ‘artificial intelligence’ (AI) to be renamed ‘super intelligence’ (SI).
The tech billionaire said that the name of his AI firm SpaceXAI (formerly xAI) would be changed to SpaceXSI following an executive order from the US president.
Trump has recently advocated for renaming AI to SI, claiming that the word artificial is “inaccurate and very ineloquent”.
In a post to his social media platform X over the weekend, Musk appeared to agree with the assessment, writing: “No more AI. SI. It’s better.”
When one of his followers asked if he would change the name of SpaceXAI to SpaceXSI, he replied: “Yes, we will make that change.”
Yes, we will make that change
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 4, 2026
The name super intelligence already existed before Trump announced at the UN General Assembly last month that he wanted to rebrand AI, though its definition is distinct from that of AI.
The term became popular within tech vernacular more than a decade ago with the 2014 publication of the book Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies.
Written by the philosopher Nick Bostrom, the book defines the term as “any intellect that greatly exceeds the cognitive performance of humans in virtually all domains of interest.”
This goes beyond the standard definition of artificial intelligence, which typically denotes a computer system built to perform cognitive tasks.
Trump’s speech at the UN followed several previous efforts to rebrand AI, with previous suggestions including supreme intelligence, superior intelligence and extreme intelligence.
Speaking in front of world leaders at the 81st United Nations General Assembly on 22 September, Trump said he hoped the US would set a trend by rejecting the use of the term AI.
“Hereinafter officially called super intelligence, changing the name, and that the use of the word artificial makes intelligence fake. It makes it sound fake, and it is not fake, it’s actually amazing,” he said.
“From this point forward, all of United States’s documents, and hopefully the world’s, will be changed to use the much more accurate term super as opposed to artificial, so it’s super intelligence.
“In other words, welcome to the new world of super intelligence/ SI. SI. Let’s see if that goes. It sounds much better, it is much better, and it’s much more accurate. Let’s see if I have any power. Maybe I do and maybe I don’t – we’re going to find out pretty soon.”
He has since signed an Executive Order directing all US government departments and agencies to adopt the term, as well as unveiled a new “Super Intelligence Force” initiative to focus on the technology.
