Trump Calls It “Super Intelligence.” I Want to See the Receipts.

AI MADE IT POSSIBLE · OPINION & EVIDENCE · UPDATED OCTOBER 1, 2026

A bigger name. Powerful business interests. Public costs that deserve answers.

Donald Trump can change what his government calls artificial intelligence. He cannot sign a breakthrough into existence.

Read Section 3 of his September 29 order. For implementation, “Super Intelligence” means the technologies already covered by the existing statutory definition of AI. The government has elevated the name without establishing that the technology has crossed a new threshold.

I work with AI. I use it to create music, develop writing and help other creators turn ideas into finished work. After more than 20 years working with emerging technologies, I know the difference between a useful tool and the story being sold around it.

Now Trump has walked into my world, bringing presidential authority and some of the most powerful business figures on earth. I have questions.

Who benefits when the president sells the future—and who remains responsible if the promise fails?

That question connects the name, the family investments, the data centres and the voluntary safeguards. A public office should serve people who will never receive an invitation to the room.

Read the order before buying the story

Trump’s September 29 executive order tells federal agencies to replace “Artificial Intelligence” and “AI” with “Super Intelligence” and “SI” in official communications and other non-statutory documents, within the limits of the law.

Then Section 3 tells us something essential: for this order, the new term means the technologies already covered by the existing statutory definition of artificial intelligence. It also directs officials to propose legislative language within 60 days.

The government has changed the label. The order does not establish that a system has crossed a new threshold of intelligence. Read the executive order.

That distinction should lead the coverage.

Trump’s publicly stated objection is that “artificial” makes the technology sound fake. “Super” presents it more favourably. That explains his stated branding preference; it does not explain away the responsibility attached to it. See the reporting on the announcement.

“Superintelligence” also carries a history far older than this administration. I. J. Good’s 1965 paper examined the possibility of machines exceeding human intellectual abilities and designing still better machines. It was an argument about a consequential possibility, rather than a presidential synonym for existing software. Read Good’s paper.

To my ear, the new label makes the product sound more advanced before the public has been shown what new capability justifies it.

For a creator, that is a familiar problem. A bigger claim still needs evidence.

The family’s financial exposure is already on the record

We do not need a rumour about domain names to establish that the president’s family has business interests in this sector.

On February 11, 2025, Dominari announced that Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump had joined its advisory board and participated in a private placement. The announcement explicitly connected the company’s strategy to AI and data centres. Read the SEC-filed announcement.

A February 18 filing then announced American Data Centers, a venture involving Dominari, both Trump sons and other industry professionals, focused on acquiring and developing data-centre campuses. Read the filing.

The filings let us go beyond a list of names. Dominari’s annual report disclosed that each Trump son paid $1 million for a package of shares and warrants in the February 2025 financing. It separately disclosed 250,000 initial advisory shares for each, followed by another 500,000 shares each upon milestones being met. These are historical disclosures, not a statement of their current holdings.

Read Dominari’s annual-report disclosures. The subsequent American Bitcoin development is described in the September 20 investigation.

There is no verified total here for personal profits caused by renaming AI. There is a documented financial stake in businesses positioned around the administration’s technology agenda. That overlap deserves an independent accounting.

When a president promotes a sector in which his family has financial exposure, the public deserves an intelligible account of the interests involved, the decisions being made and the safeguards separating them.

The presidency carries a duty to serve people who will never receive an invitation to that room.

Before the next promise, audit the last one

Trump and Elon Musk presented DOGE as a way to eliminate government waste. That record belongs beside their next sweeping promise of technological transformation.

In August 2026, the Government Accountability Office reported that DOGE’s savings figures included incorrect estimates and insufficient supporting evidence.

One example was a claimed $1.7 billion saving on a military-health IT contract. GAO found that the contract had not been terminated or reduced in scope, value or funding. No savings were achieved.

GAO also could not verify the calculation method behind 96% of DOGE-reported grant savings. It identified 108 lease terminations already in progress before DOGE was established, and reported that DOGE had not responded to requests for information or interviews. Read the GAO audit.

These findings expose a gap between the public sales pitch and the auditable record. Before accepting another sweeping promise from Trump and Musk, I want a standard that does not depend on trusting the people making it.

If you promise to eliminate waste, your own numbers should survive an audit.

The same standard belongs in AI policy. What was delivered? What did it cost? Who checked it? What happens when the claim fails?

Zuckerberg’s last future deserves a place in the conversation

Mark Zuckerberg renamed Facebook’s parent company Meta around a vision of the metaverse. That decision attached the company’s identity to an enormous bet on what people would do next.

Meta’s own financial results show a $19.193 billion operating loss for Reality Labs in 2025, following $17.729 billion in 2024. Reality Labs includes virtual and augmented reality products, so those figures should not be misrepresented as losses from a single metaverse application. Read Meta’s results.

Meta’s profitable advertising business can absorb enormous losses. Most households and local governments cannot. Its AI strategy should be judged on its own evidence, with the cost of its earlier vision kept in view.

But an executive who attached an entire corporate identity to one expensive vision should expect questions when promoting the next.

The public should be able to ask what changed in the evidence, assumptions and safeguards—not simply accept that the people with the biggest budgets have the clearest view of the future.

If the boom disappoints, whose bills remain?

Data centres are physical infrastructure. They require land, electricity, cooling, financing and public decisions. Communities have legitimate reasons to question their scale, location and terms.

Reuters’ September 29 reporting describes opposition involving electricity demand, utility costs and local impacts alongside Trump’s continued support for rapid expansion. Read the report.

Financial pressure is also becoming visible. Reuters reported on September 24 that power delays at an Oracle-linked project were affecting financing expectations. A delay at one project cannot establish an industry-wide collapse, but it shows how physical constraints can reach financial arrangements. Read the financing investigation.

An AI bubble bursting is a risk scenario. Nobody can responsibly give it a guaranteed date.

We can still ask the questions now. If revenue disappoints or projects stall, who remains responsible for infrastructure costs? Which protections are enforceable? Which promises disappear when a company restructures?

AI can remain useful even if investors overpay for the companies building it. My ability to make a song does not guarantee somebody else’s valuation.

That is why I want enforceable public protections while enthusiasm is high, rather than reassurance after the financing becomes difficult.

Political deadlines make oversight more urgent

The November election could change congressional control. Losing either chamber could increase scrutiny from January 2027, depending on the outcome and how the incoming Congress uses its authority. Trump’s presidential term would still run until January 2029.

Those are different timelines. Neither establishes that anyone is deliberately racing to extract profits before oversight changes.

They do make it urgent to document decisions while they are being made. Contracts, infrastructure commitments and regulatory choices can outlast the political coalition that approved them.

The public should not have to wait for a different government to learn what the current one committed it to.

Who gets to ask the uncomfortable questions?

Musk publicly alleged in June 2025 that Trump appeared in Epstein-related files, then deleted the post and later expressed regret about some attacks on Trump. Being named in Epstein-related records does not itself establish criminal wrongdoing. Review the chronology.

By September 29, 2026, Musk was again among the technology leaders participating in Trump’s AI event. Meanwhile, Reuters documented Trump’s November 2025 call to revoke ABC-related broadcast licences after a reporter questioned him about Epstein. That establishes a presidential threat following scrutiny, rather than a completed licence revocation. Read the report.

A return to the presidential platform does not resolve the earlier allegation. A reporter’s question should not become an occasion to threaten a broadcaster’s ability to operate.

I can ask what happens to public accountability when access is restored to powerful allies while uncomfortable journalism attracts threats.

Independent scrutiny matters most when the people asking questions have something to lose.

Altman: creators deserve answers, too

Sam Altman’s forecasts influence what investors fund and what governments treat as inevitable. OpenAI’s decisions also raise questions close to the people reading this site: whose work trains the models, what permissions matter, and who captures the resulting value?

Creators should be able to use AI while questioning the terms on which it is built. My examination of Altman’s forecasts and their outcomes goes deeper into that distinction.

AI made it possible. The public still deserves a say.

My AI Made It Possible series follows both sides of this transformation: the capabilities reaching ordinary people and the concentrated power underneath them.

I want creators to have access. I want people without large budgets to make work they care about. I want human judgment, rights and responsibility to remain part of that process.

That makes me demanding about the future being sold in our name.

Here is the standard I expect before the next expansion becomes somebody else’s bill:

• Evidence: publish the evaluations behind capability claims and allow independent testing.
• Financial transparency: disclose relevant interests, compensation and public support in terms people can inspect.
• Enforceable protections: identify who pays for infrastructure, who bears losses and what remedies apply when commitments fail.
• Public scrutiny: give communities meaningful participation and let journalists pursue answers without presidential threats.

The September 29 safety agreement is voluntary. Independent audits can be useful, but the public also needs to know what consequences follow a failure to honour a commitment. Read the reporting on the agreement.

Those expectations apply to every president and every technology executive.

Trump has now brought his authority, his branding and his industry alliances directly into the world I work in. I will examine what he is doing here.

You can call it Super Intelligence, Mr. President. I will keep asking whose interests it serves.

Your turn: Which public protection would you require before approving the next AI expansion? Leave your answer in the comments—and share this article with someone who wants the promise checked against the receipts.

Background: the rebrand and human control · AI Is Not the Wizard