California Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered state agencies to stick with “artificial intelligence” after President Trump moved to call it “super intelligence”, a political counterpunch sold as common sense.
Newsom signed an executive order Wednesday directing California agencies to refer to the technology only as “artificial intelligence” or “AI.” The move came one day after Trump told reporters he was directing the federal government to adopt “Super Intelligence,” and after top tech executives signed a White House accord using that language.
Breitbart News reported the governor framed the order as “informed by common sense” and took a direct shot at the president’s rebrand.
“Super intelligence is clearly not coming from the White House, that’s why California continues to lead,” Newsom said.
The duel over wording played out across two days, with the White House gathering industry leaders first and Sacramento answering the next day with a terminology mandate and a fresh round of worker-related AI bills.
On Tuesday, Trump told reporters the technology is “not artificial, we all agree on that.” He said he was directing the federal government to use “Super Intelligence” and hosted a White House luncheon where major industry figures signed on.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, OpenAI President Greg Brockman, and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang signed a document titled the White House Accord on Super Intelligence, also described as a Joint Commitment on Frontier SI Responsibilities. Several executives used the new term when speaking to reporters after the luncheon.
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,"
Johnson, quoted on the deal, described it as a voluntary industry statement of principles and standards rather than a hard statute.
"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 also said Congress and the White House would keep guiding the industry’s “development in a safe manner.”
Rather than match the federal outreach to companies building the technology, Newsom’s order locked California’s own bureaucracy into the older label. State agencies must now stick with “artificial intelligence” or “AI.”
He paired the announcement with bill signings aimed at AI and workers. The new laws require layoff notices tied to AI and limit how companies can use AI in disciplinary actions and firings.
That is classic California governance: more notice rules and more limits on how private employers can use tools already reshaping their workforces, issued the same day the governor turned a national branding fight into a state executive order.
Newsom has long cast himself as a national alternative and a future presidential contender, even as his 2028 White House odds have slumped and Democrats look elsewhere.
The terminology order fits a familiar pattern. Sacramento issues a high-visibility directive. The governor claims California “continues to lead.” The practical effect is another compliance layer for agencies and employers already navigating the technology.
Voters have seen this style before. The same governor who once shut down beaches later called those COVID closures “insane,” a reversal that still dogs him with people who lived through the rules, as covered in reporting on Newsom’s beach-closure about-face.
Word fights are cheaper than fixing housing costs, crime, or business flight. They also keep a restless governor in the national conversation while he maneuvers through party politics, including talk that he would step aside for Kamala Harris in a 2028 primary.
Trump’s side of the story was straightforward: recruit the companies building frontier systems, put a voluntary oversight framework on paper, and drop a label he says better matches what the technology actually is. The CEOs of Google, Anthropic, Meta, OpenAI, and Nvidia put their names on the White House accord the same day.
Newsom’s side was a state order telling California agencies which two words they may use, plus new mandates on layoff notices and AI in discipline and firings. He sold it as common sense and California leadership.
That contrast matters. One approach pulled industry into a shared set of expectations at the White House. The other turned a vocabulary dispute into an executive order and more workplace rules from Sacramento.
Newsom continues to court national relevance, seeking outside counsel and floating long-range branding exercises such as Project 2029 amid 2028 speculation, while his own party’s patience is not unlimited. Polling has even shown a notable share of Democrats open to a federal probe into his record.
None of that changes the sequence this week. Trump moved first with tech leaders and a federal terminology directive. Newsom answered by freezing “AI” into California’s official language and tying worker bills to the same news cycle.
When a governor’s big rebuttal is which acronym state forms may print, taxpayers can judge whether that is leadership or just another press release with the force of an order.
California does not become a tech capital by outlawing a phrase the White House and the industry’s top CEOs just put on paper.
