Silicon Valley aligns with Trump's push to rebrand artificial intelligence

When President Donald Trump announced a plan to rebrand artificial intelligence as "super intelligence," it could have been dismissed as another presidential whim. Instead, Silicon Valley's most visible leaders — Elon Musk, Marc Benioff, Jensen Huang and now Satya Nadella — have adopted the term in public, in what looks like coordinated alignment with the new administration.

Musk and Benioff: first to jump

Musk did not surprise anyone when he said he would rename SpaceXAI to SpaceXSI within hours of the presidential announcement. Benioff, chief executive of Salesforce, followed almost immediately, declaring that AIForce would become SIForce. Trump's post, which defined anyone who keeps using the term "artificial intelligence" as "the enemy," turned the linguistic shift into a political loyalty test more than a branding exercise.

Huang and Nadella: money and words at the joint conference

Huang, chief executive of Nvidia, attended the conference where the executive order requiring federal agencies to use the new term was signed. He also voiced the view that the danger of artificial intelligence is overstated — a position convenient for an administration that wants to accelerate development without heavy regulation. At the same time, Nvidia announced a billion-dollar "commitment" to advance science, including "super intelligence research." Nadella took a little longer, but in a post published yesterday that called for building an "emergency brake" for the technology, he repeatedly used the term "super intelligence," the same label the president has embraced.

One conference, many interests

Also present were Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai, Jeff Bezos and Dario Amodei — heads of the companies with the most to lose or gain from proximity to the administration. None has yet issued a comparable public statement, but their joint appearance signals a clear change of direction: after a tense first term with the White House, Silicon Valley is choosing the path of appeasement this time, even when that means adopting terminology most of the scientific community still does not accept.