Musk follows Trump's lead, swaps AI for SI in SpaceX rebrand

Elon Musk says SpaceXAI, the company formed by merging SpaceX and xAI, will be renamed SpaceXSI after President Donald Trump ordered US federal agencies to replace "Artificial Intelligence" with "Super Intelligence" in all comms.

Trump's September 29 executive order directs federal agencies to switch from AI to SI in official communications and other non-statutory documents. Musk endorsed the change, posting "No more AI. SI. It's better," and confirmed plans to rename SpaceXAI: "Yes, we will make that change."

He gave no date for the rebrand. At the time of writing, the spacexsi.com domain was listed for sale.

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SpaceXSI sounds somewhat like a performance car of the 1990s, or perhaps a family wagon with sporting aspirations. This writer remembers putting his driving license at risk in a Peugeot 106 XSi, occasionally finding that ambition exceeded ability.

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We asked OpenAI whether it plans to rebrand as OpenSI. The company has yet to respond. Trump's order does not require private companies to change their names.

Tech leaders including Mark Zuckerberg already use "superintelligence" to describe their ambitions. Trump's order goes further by applying the label to technologies covered by the existing federal definition of AI.

Musk has form when it comes to rebranding. Twitter became X in July 2023, nine months after he bought it.

"SpaceX is a super intelligence company," Musk posted. Bad news for NASA, which probably thought it had something to do with rockets. ®