Musk and Zuckerberg Swap "AI" for "Super Intelligence" on Earnings Calls; Google, Amazon and Microsoft Hold Out

The branding fight over "AI" has reached corporate earnings calls. In a CNBC report published on October 30, 2026, the outlet says Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg adopted President Trump's preferred "super intelligence" wording on their third-quarter calls, while the chief executives of Alphabet, Amazon and Microsoft largely kept saying AI.

This post lays out who said what, using CNBC's reporting and the quotes it cites, adds the background from our earlier coverage of the order, and separates the wording change from anything that actually changes in how AI is built or governed. We did not listen to every call ourselves; direct quotes below are as CNBC reports them.

TL;DR: who said what

What did Trump actually order?

CNBC says Trump declared on September 29, 2026, while hosting an AI luncheon for industry leaders at the White House, that the term "super intelligence" should replace "artificial intelligence" within executive branch departments and agencies. CNBC adds that this week he announced on Truth Social that he is banning the use of AI or artificial intelligence in "all relevant documents" and "everything else". We covered the first step in Trump signs order renaming AI to Super Intelligence, and the commitments announced alongside it in our White House Accord on Super Intelligence explainer.

The idea had been floating before the order. Our earlier piece, why the term AI has survived every rebrand since 1956, traced the history of attempts to rename the field and the polling around the new candidates. The October 4 follow-up on the White House task force and Bessent's call to "slow down" shows the same vocabulary now sits in policy documents.

An official document with a green seal and a pen, representing the White House order on the term super intelligence

Who followed, and how closely?

Musk: a rename inside SpaceX

CNBC says Musk changed the name of SpaceX's AI division to SpaceXSI earlier in October. On Tesla's earnings call he used the shorthand SI when talking about humanoid robots: "Some of them look very impressive, but they're not really using any kind of advanced AI or SI." For the financial picture of that division, see our SpaceX Q3 earnings breakdown.

Zuckerberg: a term Meta already owned

Zuckerberg's usage is the least surprising. CNBC points out that Meta was already using the word, having created Meta Superintelligence Labs last year. On the October 21 call, he described the "goal of delivering personal superintelligence to everyone." Benzinga's coverage of the same call has him saying the company can build superintelligence "through scaling". So this is less a conversion than a convenient alignment: a phrase Meta used for its own reasons now also matches the White House.

Others: mixed signals

CNBC's central point is that the rest of the field was slower to move. Amazon's Andy Jassy said AI well over a dozen times in his introductory remarks, Microsoft's Satya Nadella named "designing AI to empower people" as one of three focus areas, and Alphabet's Sundar Pichai began with "AI investments are driving increased usage and overall user growth."

But CNBC cautions that sticking with "AI" on a call is not open defiance. Microsoft's annual report, filed the week before, uses super intelligence eight times, beginning in the shareholder letter: "the central question as we enter this Super Intelligence era is not just how big the opportunity becomes, but how we deliver the real-world outcomes that every country, community, and company demands and deserves." IBM's Arvind Krishna mixed the terms, and Intel's Lip-Bu Tan used the new phrase to explain chip supply shortages. Our own read on Nadella's wider letter is in the Microsoft annual letter breakdown.

Who is openly cheering?

CNBC lists several executives who have publicly embraced the term. Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora referred to SI repeatedly on CNBC and posted on X on September 30 that "the meeting at the WH on SI was an epic moment." Nvidia's Jensen Huang praised the "White House Accord on Super Intelligence" on X, writing that super intelligence "offers an extraordinary opportunity to advance discovery, productivity, security, health, and prosperity." These are statements of support for the policy and its vocabulary, and they appeared on social media rather than in filings.

Does the rename change anything real?

This is the question that matters to readers who build with these systems. From what is reported, the answer is mostly no, with three caveats.

1. Models and products are unchanged. Nothing in the CNBC report suggests any technical definition has shifted. "Super intelligence" in these calls refers to the same frontier models and compute buildout that were previously called AI. Musk's own line about humanoid robots shows the term is also being used as a capability bar: robots not using "advanced AI or SI".
2. Documents are the first place it shows up. Government papers, shareholder letters and annual reports are where the wording first changes, because they are written deliberately. Live calls are looser, which is why several CEOs slipped back into AI.
3. Search and discovery are affected. If official documents, filings and press releases drift to "super intelligence", the way people write headlines, tag content and search for policy will drift too. Teams that track AI regulation or earnings language should add the new term to their monitoring.

The harder question, whether the term implies something about capability or risk, is where critics will focus. Our earlier Is AI taking us to the point of no return? piece covers the safety debate that the word "super" tends to invite. CNBC does not report any company changing a product, price or safety policy because of the wording.

Why the timing matters

CNBC notes the push comes just before next week's midterm elections, with Republicans at risk of losing control of both chambers and Trump's job approval and economic approval falling to lows in CNBC's latest survey. Whether that context explains the wording is the reporter's framing, not something companies have confirmed. It does mean the rebrand is happening in a political season, which can make corporate adoption look like signalling rather than strategy.

For companies, the calculation is mundane. Echoing the preferred term costs little, may smooth relations with the administration, and is easy to reverse. Declining to do so, as Alphabet, Amazon and Microsoft's CEOs did on live calls, also costs little because everyone knows the underlying technology.

What to watch next

• Remaining earnings calls. CNBC notes some executives were explicit in support ahead of reports next month; Nvidia's and Palo Alto Networks' calls are the ones to listen to.
• Annual and quarterly filings. The share of risk-factor and business-description text that says "super intelligence" is a measurable indicator of adoption.
• Federal documents. The Truth Social announcement about banning "AI" in all relevant documents suggests more agency language will change; watch for guidance from agencies on how strictly it applies.
• Third-party usage. Model labs' own docs and API names. We have not seen a model or product renamed because of the order.

What is confirmed and what is not

Bottom line

The story is real but small: two CEOs aligned with a White House vocabulary change while three others did not, and a major annual report quietly adopted it anyway. For builders, nothing about the models changed. For anyone tracking policy, filings and corporate messaging, the vocabulary is now a signal worth watching.

Related reading

• Trump signs order renaming AI to Super Intelligence
• White House Accord on Super Intelligence
• Why the term AI has survived every rebrand since 1956
• White House task force and Bessent's "slow down"
• SpaceX Q3 2026 earnings
• Nadella's annual letter

Details reflect CNBC's October 30, 2026 report and public sources as of that date.