At 8:46 on Friday morning, Donald Trump told his Truth Social followers that Xi Jinping liked his idea to rename artificial intelligence "SUPER INTELLIGENCE." By 10:29, r/singularity had a 178-comment thread on the claim — filed under the flair "Shitposting." The verdict from the top of the thread: Xi was probably just being polite.

This is one of those stories where the verified record and the rumor travel in the same sentence. Trump really did post it. Whether Xi really liked it is — at this point — one man's characterization. Here's what each side of that sentence looks like.

What Trump actually posted#

The post sits on the verified @realDonaldTrump account, timestamped September 25, 2026, 8:46 AM EDT. Its full text:

"Very productive meeting with President Xi for both the U.S.A. and China. Tremendous things will be happening. Like almost everyone else, he seemed to like calling the poorly and inaccurately named Artificial Intelligence to a far more accurate and important name, SUPER INTELLIGENCE. That would be "SUPER!" Everyone last night agreed, also. President DJT"

At the time we read it, the post showed roughly 2,990 ReTruths, 14,100 likes, and 1,578 replies — real traction for a Friday morning, and the kind of engagement that makes a claim travel whether or not it holds up.

How r/singularity reacted#

The Reddit thread, posted by u/OmegaGogeta at 10:29 AM EDT, runs a screenshot of the Truth Social post with the body text "(This is real)" plus a link to the original and the line "What is happening genuinely." It was sitting at a score of 229 with 90% upvoted and 178 comments when we read it — moving fast for a subreddit thread under two hours old.

The top comments, in the page's Top ordering (r/singularity hides exact comment scores for the first 120 minutes, so this is ordering rather than vote counts), treat the post as real and the premise as a joke:

  • Echopine: "Okay but what happens when we achieve artificial super intelligence? Are we supposed to call it extra super intelligence?" — takes the rename at face value and follows it to its absurd conclusion.
  • Argnir: "He just said some shit to make Trump feel smart" — the leading qualification of the headline: flattery, not endorsement.
  • OccasionalXerophile: "Written by a child."
  • coxenbawls: "Xi is laughing at how the American empire is crumbling by itself" — leaning toward debunk.
  • DrSFalken: "It's all so fucking embarassing."

Deeper in the thread, the dominant mood is source skepticism: "why would you believe Donald Trump as a source for xi?", "I don't believe a single thing this serial liar says," "Is this real??? Sounds like an onion joke." Not a single top comment confirmed the headline claim that Xi endorsed the rename, and the original poster never replied to any comment. The community's working theory is not a conspiracy — it's diplomacy: of course a counterpart nods along.

Portrait of Xi Jinping
Xi Jinping. Photo: president.az / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0).

Why the name itself is the story#

Part of why the thread is laughing is that "superintelligence" is not a free word in AI. It's the technical term for AI systems that surpass human intelligence — artificial superintelligence, or ASI — the subject of an entire safety research field. It is also, as this site reported, the name currently attached to proposed US legislation.

Rebranding everyday AI as "SUPER INTELLIGENCE" would put your chatbot and your coding assistant in the same lexical bucket as the thing safety researchers lose sleep over. Every press release, every product launch, every doomsday scenario would suddenly share a name with autocomplete. The collision is the joke — and the reason the Echopine comment landed at the top.

Editorial illustration of a giant robot head looming over two diplomats shaking hands
Editorial illustration: AI Frontier Post (AI-generated).

What checks out — and what doesn't#

ClaimStatus
Trump posted the "SUPER INTELLIGENCE" messageVerified — live on the verified @realDonaldTrump Truth Social account, Sep 25, 2026, 8:46 AM EDT, with ~2,990 ReTruths and 14,100 likes at the time of reading.
r/singularity is arguing about itVerified — thread u/OmegaGogeta's post, 10:29 AM EDT, 229 score / 178 comments at read time, "Shitposting" flair.
"Superintelligence" already has a technical meaningVerified — ASI is the established term for AI surpassing human intelligence, used across safety research and legislation.
Xi Jinping endorsed the renameUnverified. The sole source is Trump's characterization ("he seemed to like"). No Chinese readout or independent confirmation seen.
"Everyone last night agreed"Unverified. Trump's words; no corroboration on the page or elsewhere.

What to watch#

Three things would move this from rumor to news: an official White House or Beijing readout of the meeting that mentions the rename, any lab, lawmaker, or standards body taking the idea seriously, or the meme spreading to X and beyond over the weekend with real engagement. Until any of that happens, file this exactly where r/singularity did — as Trump's pitch, not as agreed policy. And if we ever do build superintelligence, we're going to need a new name for it.