California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order forcing state agencies to keep saying “artificial intelligence”, a partisan swipe at President Trump’s superintelligence branding.
On Wednesday, Newsom directed California agencies to refer to the technology only as “artificial intelligence” or “AI,” rejecting the federal push that began a day earlier at the White House.
Breitbart News reported the order as a pointed answer to President Trump, who told reporters Tuesday he was directing the federal government to adopt the term “Super Intelligence.” Newsom framed his move as “informed by common sense.”
Trump had gathered top industry leaders the same day for a White House luncheon and a voluntary industry pact. Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, OpenAI President Greg Brockman, and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang signed the “White House Accord on Super Intelligence.”
Several of those executives used the new term when speaking to reporters afterward. Trump likened the accord to a “constitution” and praised the session.
“We had a great, really a great great meeting. It was something very, very special,” Trump said.
"We had a great, really a great great meeting. It was something very, very special,"
He also told reporters the technology is “not artificial, we all agree on that.”
Johnson described the document as the “White House Accord on Super Intelligence, a Joint Commitment on Frontier SI Responsibilities.” He called it a statement of principles, standards, and voluntary commitments from industry.
“It sets forth expectations. It’s, in short summary, robust internal controls and layers of internal and external review,” Johnson said. “That’s important because you need people to be providing oversight and transparency, and that’s what these leaders are going to do.”
"It is entitled the White House Accord on Super Intelligence, a Joint Commitment on Frontier SI Responsibilities. This is a statement of principles that you’ll see, a statement of standards, commitments that are voluntary on behalf of the industry. It sets forth expectations. It’s, in short summary, robust internal controls and layers of internal and external review. That’s important because you need people to be providing oversight and transparency, and that’s what these leaders are going to do."
Johnson added that Congress and the White House would keep guiding the industry’s “development in a safe manner.” The focus was oversight, transparency, and internal controls, not renaming software for political scorekeeping.
Newsom’s response arrived the next day as pure branding politics. He paired the terminology order with a round of bill signings meant to tighten rules on employers using AI.
The new California laws require layoff notices tied to AI and limit how companies can use AI in disciplinary actions and firings. Sacramento again chose more process and more employer rules while the White House secured voluntary commitments from the companies actually building the systems.
Newsom did not hide the jab. “Super intelligence is clearly not coming from the White House, that’s why California continues to lead,” he said.
"Super intelligence is clearly not coming from the White House, that’s why California continues to lead,"
That line fits a familiar pattern. The same governor has tried to pin California’s housing failures on Trump even when his own numbers undercut the claim. Word fights and blame-shifting come easier than fixing the state’s core problems.
Trump’s approach treated the technology as a national-capacity issue and brought the leading firms into a shared set of expectations. Newsom answered with an order about what state clerks are allowed to type.
Politico noted the back-and-forth over wording across the two days. Trump moved first on Tuesday with the federal directive, the luncheon, and the signed accord. Newsom answered Wednesday with the state terminology lock and the worker bills.
Presidential directives often draw immediate partisan resistance, whether the subject is technology language or oversight of federal spending and agency leadership. The pattern is consistent: act, then face the counter-message from Democratic governors and allied institutions.
Voters have also watched courts and Congress sort through other Trump administration moves, from deportation authority upheld by the Supreme Court to confirmation fights in which Democrats line up against key nominees. The AI branding fight sits in that same climate of rapid pushback.
None of that changes the substance on the table this week. One side produced a voluntary industry accord stressing internal controls, external review, oversight, and transparency. The other side issued an order about preferred vocabulary and added new notice and discipline limits on California employers.
Senate Republicans have pressed similar accountability themes in other arenas, including scrutiny of past special-counsel work and the politics around Trump-related cases, as when Jack Smith defended his prosecutions under GOP questioning. The through-line is simple: governing choices versus messaging stunts.
The executives who put their names on the White House accord run the core platforms and chip supply behind advanced AI. Their participation gave the federal effort a practical anchor the California order never attempted to match.
Newsom’s team cast the state as the adult in the room. The record from these two days shows something narrower: a governor ordering agencies to freeze a label while the White House and major firms wrote down expectations for controls and review.
Confirmation battles elsewhere, including the closely divided advance of Trump’s surgeon general nominee through a Senate panel, show how quickly every Trump initiative becomes a partisan object. The superintelligence label was no exception.
Call the technology what you want. The choice that matters is whether leaders spend their time on enforceable standards and industrial capacity, or on executive orders about approved phrases.
Washington brought the builders to the table and left with commitments. Sacramento answered with a style guide.