Two of Silicon Valley's most prominent chief executives changed their vocabulary on their third-quarter earnings calls this week — and the word they chose was the president's. Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg both reached for “super intelligence” where they would once have said “artificial intelligence,” while the chief executives of Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet stayed with AI.

The switch was reported by CNBC on Friday morning, and it landed the way language choices in Washington usually land: as a signal. Nobody's products changed. What changed was who sounded aligned with the White House's renaming campaign — and who pointedly did not.

The split on the calls#

Zuckerberg set the pattern on Meta's call on October 21, describing the company's goal as delivering personal superintelligence to everyone. That phrasing was not new for Meta: the company had created its Superintelligence Labs the previous year, a fact that matters for what follows. Musk followed on the Tesla and SpaceX calls, after renaming SpaceX's AI division SpaceX SI earlier in October; on Tesla's call he described some humanoid robots as impressive-looking machines that used neither advanced AI nor superintelligence.

The holdouts were just as deliberate. Amazon chief executive Andy Jassy used AI well over a dozen times in his introductory remarks on Thursday. Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella spoke of designing AI to empower people. Alphabet chief executive Sundar Pichai said AI investment was driving increased usage within seconds of starting his commentary. Earnings calls are scripted, lawyered and watched by investors and policymakers alike; nobody on one drifts into a new term by accident.

A vast data-center hall with rows of glowing server racks under a single warm beam of light
AI-generated editorial illustration: the data-center build-out behind the earnings-call language.

What Trump ordered, and when#

The backdrop is a September 29 order from President Trump that “super intelligence” replace “artificial intelligence” within the government. At a White House AI luncheon that day, the administration banned the terms AI and artificial intelligence from all relevant documents inside executive-branch departments. The order covers government paperwork, not corporate speech: no chief executive was required to change a word on an earnings call.

That is what makes the voluntary switches notable, and the holdouts equally notable. A CEO who adopts the administration's term on a public call is offering alignment at zero cost; a CEO who keeps saying AI is declining the same offer, also at zero cost. Both moves are legible to the same audience in Washington.

Why the holdouts matter less than the headline suggests#

The divide is narrower than a headline about who “did not” switch implies. Microsoft's annual report filed last week included eight mentions of super intelligence. IBM chief executive Arvind Krishna used SI alongside AI. Palo Alto Networks chief executive Nikesh Arora referred to SI repeatedly and praised a White House meeting on the subject in a September 30 post. Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang praised the White House accord on super intelligence on X. The split, in other words, is specifically about earnings-call language this week — not an industry-wide rejection, and not an industry-wide conversion.

That is the rational way to read it. A chief executive manages two audiences at once: investors who want the AI growth story told in the words they already price, and an administration that has made one word a small loyalty test. Using both terms, or using SI everywhere except the call itself, splits the difference neatly.

Rows of cameras pointed at an empty, brightly lit press-conference stage
AI-generated editorial illustration: the press room watching every word on the calls.

What Reddit got right, and wrong#

The story surfaced on r/ArtificialInteligence on Friday morning, where a thread carrying CNBC's headline drew 96 upvotes and 79 comments. The thread's value was in its corrections. Commenters pointed out that Zuckerberg and Meta had used the term before Trump did, citing the Superintelligence Labs launch last year — a point CNBC's own reporting supports. One reply dismissed a theory about domain-name grabs as baseless.

The thread also carried speculation that does not appear in CNBC's reporting, including a trademark theory and an expansion of SI as “Synthetic Intelligence.” None of that is in the CNBC article, and this article does not repeat it as fact. The episode is a useful reminder of how these threads work: the headline travels fast, and the corrections underneath it are often the more accurate half of the post.

What to watch#

Three things matter from here. First, next earnings season: does SI spread to the Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet calls, or does it stay a Musk and Zuckerberg marker? Second, whether the administration extends the naming push beyond government documents, into procurement language or grant conditions, where wording stops being voluntary. And third, the branding contest underneath the vocabulary contest: Meta's earlier use gives Zuckerberg a plausible claim that the term was his before it was Trump's, and how hard he presses that claim will say something about how he wants the relationship read.

A word is a small thing to change on a call. That is precisely why changing it — or refusing to — gets noticed.

Sources: CNBC’s October 30, 2026 report on the earnings calls, here; Binance Square’s October 30, 2026 summary of the same earnings-call split, here; the r/ArtificialInteligence thread that surfaced the story, here. Cover and inline images are AI-generated editorial illustrations.