SUCCESS

Cathie Wood, head of Ark Investment Management, is known for making big bets on disruptive tech stocks. Sometimes, she’ll buy when these stocks are already rising.

That’s what she just did with Meta Platforms (META), buying shares after the social media giant surged about 17% over the past month.

Last year, the flagship Ark Innovation ETF gained 35.49%, far outpacing the S&P 500’s return of 17.88% in the same period. So far this year, Wood’s flagship Ark Innovation ETF (ARKK) is up 14.80% as of writing, while the S&P 500 surged 13.97%, Yahoo Finance data shows.

Wood gained a reputation after the Ark Innovation ETF delivered a rosy 153% return in 2020. But her style also brings painful losses in bearish markets, as seen in 2022, when the ETF tumbled more than 60%.

Those swings have weighed on Wood’s long-term gains. As of Oct. 6, her Ark Innovation ETF has delivered a five-year annualized return of -3.66%, while the S&P 500 has an annualized return of 12.37% over the same period, according to data from Morningstar.

Cathie Wood remains optimistic about AI and tech revolution

Wood focuses on high-tech companies across artificial intelligence, blockchain, biomedical technology, and robotics. She believes these businesses have strong growth potential, but their volatility often causes fluctuations in the Ark’s funds.

Over the decade ended 2025, the Ark Innovation ETF wiped out nearly $5 billion in investor wealth, according to a report by Morningstar’s analyst Amy Arnott. That made it the fourth-biggest wealth destroyer among mutual funds and ETFs in the ranking. 

Wood defended her investment strategy after an audience member at a recent summit questioned ARK’s performance compared with the Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ).

“I welcome the question. Investors deserve to understand both their returns and the decisions behind them,” Wood said in a post on X (the former Twitter) on Oct. 5.

Related: Cathie Wood buys $81.5 million of surging semiconductor stock

She argued that the ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK) and QQQ are built differently. QQQ tracks the Nasdaq-100 Index, while ARK actively invests in companies it believes are driving disruptive innovation across industries including healthcare, financial services, and transportation.

Wood has long been optimistic about AI, which she sees as a major driver of productivity, economic growth, and corporate profits in the years ahead. She has also pushed back against recent fears that AI could pose an existential threat to humanity.

On Sept. 12, Wood reposted an X post from David Sacks, saying that he made a good case that the “AI will kill humanity” headlines were orchestrated.

At the same time, Wood acknowledged that AI, like other technologies, can be used for harmful purposes. She said people such as Elon Musk who highlight AI’s potential risks are “doing us a great service,” adding that “half of the solution — including AI — is understanding the problem.”

In August, Wood said U.S. corporate profits remain unusually strong, with domestic profits before tax at 13.2% of GDP, a level she said is near multi-decade highs. 

Some of that strength came from the massive monetary and fiscal stimulus during the pandemic, but Wood believes another factor is helping sustain margins today: Companies are leaning into AI and productivity gains to protect them.

“I think we’re still early in seeing how far that can go,” she said, adding that companies that use AI effectively will “separate themselves from the ones that don’t.”

Some investors agree with Wood’s optimism. Over the past month through Oct. 5, the Ark Innovation ETF saw roughly $2.3 billion in net inflows, according to data from ETF research firm VettaFi. 

Over the past month through Oct. 5, the Ark Innovation ETF saw roughly $2.3 billion in net inflows.Getty Images

Cathie Wood buys $7.8 million of Meta stock

On Oct. 6, Wood’s Ark funds bought a total of 10,789 shares of Meta Platforms (META), according to Ark’s daily trading information sent to TheStreet. These shares were worth about $7.8 million based on the latest trading price of $724.97.

The social media giant is pushing deeper into AI agents. In September, it launched Muse, a personal AI agent. The app has now become one of the most popular personal AI agents since its debut, climbing to the top of Apple’s App Store ahead of ChatGPT, CNBC noted.

Related: Qualcomm CFO says look beyond the Apple deal

Meta described Muse as a “widely available personal AI agent” designed for everyday users that can take actions on their behalf and help with daily tasks.

“It can handle tasks, like sending an email or booking travel, and it can take on big, audacious goals,” Meta said in a statement.

After rolling out Muse, Meta is also working with companies such as Walmart and Stripe to bring AI agents further into the business world. The group is developing a “personal agent protocol,” an open standard that defines how AI agents interact with businesses, CNBC reported. 

However, Amazon (AMZN) has blocked Meta’s agents over concerns about website scraping. 

Shares of Meta have gained more than 17% over the past month as of writing. Still, Meta shares are up 9.8% year to date, underperforming the S&P 500 index.

Wells Fargo analyst Ken Gawrelski recently raised the firm’s price target on Meta Platforms to $1,000 from $796 and kept an Overweight rating on the stock. 

The analyst said the enthusiasm around the Muse product cycle was “warranted,” according to The Fly’s reporting on Oct. 6, StockTwits noted.

However, Wells Fargo expects Meta’s third-quarter earnings call to offer some caution for investors who are expecting Muse to make a financial contribution in 2027.

Gawrelski also expects Wall Street’s 2027 EPS to likely fall due to higher operating expenses.

Meta is not a top-10 holding in the Ark Innovation ETF. 

Top 10 holdings in the Ark Innovation ETF by market value and weight as of Oct. 7, 2026:

Tesla (TSLA) – 9.59%, $903.5 million

SpaceX (SPCX) – 6.94%, $653.8 million

Tempus AI (TEM) – 5.10%, $480.7 million

Circle Internet Group (CRCL) – 4.61%, $434.3 million

Coinbase Global (COIN) – 4.32%, $407.0 million

CRISPR Therapeutics (CRSP) – 4.28%, $403.3 million

Robinhood Markets (HOOD) – 3.74%, $351.9 million

Twist Bioscience (TWST) – 3.61%, $340.5 million

Shopify (SHOP) – 3.54%, $333.0 million

Nvidia (NVDA) – 3.11%, $293.0 million

Other than buying Meta shares, Wood’s latest trades included buying Archer Aviation (ACHR), CoreWeave (CRWV), Kratos Defense (KTOS), Symbotic (SYM), Joby Aviation (JOBY), Aurora Innovation (AUR), AeroVironment (AVAV), Amazon (AMZN), Block (XYZ), and Veracyte (VCYT).

She also sold shares of Robinhood (HOOD), SpaceX (SPCX), Teradyne (TER), Tempus AI (TEM), 10x Genomics (TXG), Twist Bioscience (TWST), DraftKings (DKNG), and Personalis (PSNL).

Related: Cathie Wood buys $19.2 million of tumbling AI stock

Artificial intelligence has given companies powerful new tools. It’s made it more difficult for corporate IT teams to manage such products.

Businesses must choose what those agents can see, what they can do, and how to monitor their behavior as they move from testing AI to allowing autonomous agents to access corporate data and carry out tasks.

According to Melius Research, Microsoft (MSFT) may benefit from that issue.

Melius analyst Ben Reitzes upgraded Microsoft to Buy from Hold and raised his price target to $665 from $465, according to Barron’s. Reitzes argued that rising demand for AI security and governance could strengthen Microsoft’s position as companies look for trusted systems to manage models and agents.

The theory extends beyond Microsoft’s current position as a leading provider of cloud computing capacity.

With Azure, Microsoft 365, and its cybersecurity technologies, Microsoft is already present in many major corporations. These current connections may increase in value if companies desire a single platform to control how AI interacts with their data and personnel.

This gives investors another opportunity to profit from the AI boom: helping businesses maintain control over the technology after they implement it.

Microsoft could turn AI complexity into an advantage

The availability of improved models and sufficient processing power to run them was a major factor in the early stages of the artificial intelligence boom.

Businesses may now choose models from many developers, and AI agents can access databases, analyze documents, and take actions with less direct human intervention. Although this flexibility increases the technology’s usefulness, it also raises additional concerns about security, compliance, and authorization.

According to Melius, Microsoft is in a good position to act as a mediator between business clients and such AI systems.

Instead of granting individual AI suppliers direct access to critical systems, businesses may use a platform that decides which models perform certain tasks, while controlling what agents are allowed to access.

Reitzes believes requirements like these might strengthen Microsoft’s corporate position and increase its pricing power, Barron’s noted.

The company is already developing products based on that concept. Microsoft said Agent 365 extends existing identity, security, management, and governance controls to AI agents. Just two months after launch, nearly 40 million agents had been registered across tens of thousands of companies.

This provides a quantifiable operational environment for the Melius thesis.

For every business endeavor, Microsoft does not necessarily need to have the best AI model. Instead, it may become the system that businesses use to handle a variety of models.

Additionally, the business may connect a number of its goods around that function. The computer infrastructure is provided by Azure, workplace apps are managed by Microsoft 365, identity is managed by Entra, and risks and access are monitored by Microsoft’s security solutions.

Customers may have additional incentives to purchase numerous Microsoft products rather than assembling disparate services from various providers as those systems become more linked.

Because of these factors, corporate AI’s increasing complexity may become a competitive advantage for Microsoft, rather than just another technological obstacle.

Azure gives Microsoft another way to capture AI spending

With significant demand now flowing via Azure, Microsoft is moving into the next stage.

Azure and other cloud-services revenue increased 43% in Microsoft’s fiscal fourth quarter ended June 30. Microsoft Cloud revenue rose 27% to $59.3 billion, while Intelligent Cloud revenue increased 32% to $39.3 billion, according to a Microsoft statement.

The demand has been high enough to surpass Microsoft’s present computer capability.

According to Microsoft, throughout the quarter, customer demand for Azure remained higher than available capacity. To increase capacity online, the corporation has been making significant investments in data centers and other infrastructure.

Melius anticipates that growth will contribute to yet another acceleration.

The firm forecasts Azure growth of more than 50% by Microsoft’s fiscal fourth quarter of 2027, according to Investing.com. Melius also raised its fiscal 2027 and fiscal 2028 earnings estimates following the upgrade.

These projections are significant because investors have been questioning whether Microsoft’s massive infrastructure expenditure can provide sufficient returns for the majority of the AI boom.

The company’s current backlog indicates that demand is still high.

By the conclusion of the June quarter, Microsoft’s commercial remaining performance obligation had increased by 84% to $678 billion. The metric includes contracted commercial income that has not yet been recognized.

Notably, Microsoft claimed that clients outside of frontier-model businesses were the source of all sequential increases in that backlog. The remaining performance requirement rose by 25% when OpenAI was excluded.

This implies that Microsoft’s cloud potential extends beyond the expenditures of a few major AI developers.

Security and governance might further expand it.

Microsoft may be able to track expenditure at many levels of the AI stack if companies use Azure more often to manage how agents interact with corporate systems in addition to running models.

Microsoft’s next AI edge may come from control.KENT NISHIMURA / Getty Images

Microsoft’s AI strategy is moving beyond infrastructure

Businesses are also adopting the platforms and apps that Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure sits atop.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella informed investors that Microsoft 365 Copilot has well over 30 million paid seats, and that net seat additions more than doubled sequentially during the June quarter.

In contrast, Microsoft Foundry now has 100,000 users, and platform income has more than quadrupled from the previous year. Using various models, Foundry enables companies to create and manage AI agents and apps while integrating them with corporate data and controls.

These figures contribute to the explanation of the importance of security and governance in the investment argument.

As AI becomes increasingly integrated into routine company processes, agents will more frequently interact with sensitive data and systems. Businesses will need methods for managing permits, conducting audits, and enforcing current security regulations.

Microsoft already sells many of those tools.

Instead of considering AI as a separate product category, the announcement presents a chance to link AI expenditure with the company’s well-established enterprise software division.

According to Microsoft, Agent 365 aims to give agents access to the governance, identity, security, and management frameworks that businesses already have. Additionally, the business said that more than 50 billion Copilot contacts had been inspected for compliance reasons using its Purview platform.

As companies give AI systems greater freedom, such goods may become more crucial.

That may also help Microsoft’s higher-value corporate products.

Customers have begun using the company’s E7 suite, which includes Copilot, E5, Entra, and Agent 365. During the first two months of the product’s release, hundreds of business clients bought millions of seats.

Melius is simply pointing out that opportunity.

Microsoft offers businesses more than just access to AI. It is progressively offering the solutions that businesses may need to control artificial intelligence when they integrate it into their routine tasks.

Wall Street sees another Microsoft growth lever

The Melius upgrade reframes one of the main concerns about Microsoft shares.

Investors are already aware of the company’s significant investments in AI infrastructure. They are also aware that Azure is profiting from the rising need for processing power.

The less-explored portion of the narrative is what happens when businesses begin overseeing a sizable number of AI agents inside their companies.

That may immediately capitalize on Microsoft’s current advantages.

Microsoft has been cultivating connections with business IT departments for decades. For many of those clients, its solutions already manage workplace apps, cloud infrastructure, identity, data, and cybersecurity.

AI agents add an additional layer that requires management.

Melius believes that as AI develops, Microsoft’s enterprise position may improve rather than deteriorate. The company’s confidence that it can convert that position into better profitability and stronger Azure growth is reflected in its $665 price objective.

How quickly corporate AI expenditure will result in profits is still up for debate, especially given Microsoft’s ongoing significant infrastructure investments.

However, the company’s most recent statistics show demand in several areas. Azure revenue grew 43% in the June quarter. Microsoft Cloud generated $59.3 billion in revenue. Microsoft 365 Copilot surpassed 30 million paid seats, and Agent 365 registered nearly 40 million agents within two months.

Taken together, these numbers demonstrate Microsoft’s progress beyond providing AI processing power.

Additionally, it is attempting to become the platform that businesses use for technology deployment, monitoring, and control.

Melius’ upgrade differs somewhat from a traditional positive bet on AI growth because of its focus.

The company contends that maintaining the security and corporate management of more powerful systems, one of AI’s new challenges, may be another factor driving businesses to increase their spending with Microsoft.

Related: Microsoft cutting off popular software with no extension Oct. 13

Russia has shared little information about how a researcher in Siberia died from a “pneumonia of unknown origin.”

Musk called the alleged blockade a crime against Indians.

Jamie Dimon has spent much of this year warning that the bond market is a problem waiting to happen. On April 28, at a conference hosted by Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, the JPMorgan Chase CEO said there would be “some kind of bond crisis,” according to TheStreet.

The debt he had in mind was mostly owed by governments. But Dimon has long argued that the pain lands somewhere else.

In a 2025 Fox Business interview, he said bond market volatility hurts the people raising money, small businesses included. He admitted he could not tell whether trouble was six months or six years away. This time, he named the next group in line.

Also read: Scott Bessent just made a bold move on the bond market

Dimon says corporate borrowers will start to squeeze

Speaking on the sidelines of a JPMorgan event in London on Oct. 6, Dimon said the worldwide scramble for capital could begin to squeeze corporate borrowers, Bloomberg reported. Investors will keep asking for more, he said. At some point, that feeds into corporate debt and credit spreads.

A credit spread is the extra interest a company pays over what a government pays to borrow. When spreads widen, refinancing an old loan or raising a new one costs more.

Dimon’s advice was to move early. “The best thing to do with any of these things is deal with it before it becomes a crisis,” he said. If it does become one, he added, it will still get dealt with, only in a much less pleasant way.

His comments land in the middle of a global bond sell-off. It began after the start of the war in Iran, which pushed inflation materially higher.

The benchmark 30-year Treasury yield recently climbed past levels last seen in 2007. The U.S. economy’s strength and the AI boom’s demand for capital have added to the pressure.

Riskier debt is already showing the strain. In the credit default swap market, the cost of insuring U.S. junk bonds against default has widened sharply, according to LSEG data compiled by Yardeni Research.

Dimon’s explanation starts with supply and demand. In May, he said the world had moved from a savings glut to a shortage of savings.Bloomberg / Getty Images

Distressed loans hit a pandemic-era high

JPMorgan’s own strategists have put numbers on the problem. Leveraged loans trading below 60 cents on the dollar reached $65 billion. That is up from $40 billion a year earlier and the most since March 2020.

The wider pool of troubled loans is larger still. Loans priced at or below 80 cents on the dollar total $139.8 billion. That is nearly 90% more than 12 months ago and just $4 billion short of the peak set in May 2020, as reported by Bloomberg.

Technology is the weak spot. The sector makes up 39% of the distressed total, or $54.4 billion. In all, 141 issuers have loans trading below 80 cents, which is 35 more than a year ago.

The bank expects more companies to miss payments. Its strategists see the high-yield bond default rate rising to 2.75% in 2027, up from a projected 2.25% this year. Defaults on leveraged loans are expected to reach 4.50% in 2027 as well.

Bonds rated CCC, the lowest rung of junk, already yield 15.58%, the highest since November 2022, according to Bloomberg.

Why money is getting more expensive

Dimon’s explanation starts with supply and demand. In May, he said the world had moved from a savings glut to a shortage of savings. He warned that interest rates could climb far above where they stood. The 30-year Treasury yield had by then reached levels not seen since 2007.

He pointed to three forces: high oil prices; worries about government spending in Japan, the U.K., and the U.S.; and growth driven by AI. He also noted that $30 trillion of that debt carried an average rate of 3.5%, with about $2 trillion due to be refinanced this year, Bloomberg reported.

More Wall Street:

Wall Street’s AI trade faces its biggest valuation test

The next Wall Street shift is already underway

Wall Street sends strong 4-word verdict on the stock market

The U.S. debt load adds another layer. Federal debt had reached $39 trillion by the time Dimon spoke in Norway on April 28.

He cited the 2022 U.K. gilt crisis as a case study: Yields surged within days, and the Bank of England was forced to intervene. His point was that these things move fast.

Inflation rounds out the picture. Dimon’s April 6 shareholder letter called it “the skunk at the party.” His concern was that prices would move up rather than down through 2026, with energy costs pushed higher by the war in Iran.

What borrowers and investors should watch

For companies, Dimon’s test is a plain one. Leveraged or not, any business that has to refinance or borrow should ask whether it is ready for higher credit spreads. That goes for healthy balance sheets as much as stretched ones.

So far, the damage has stayed contained. After the Federal Reserve raised rates in September, Dimon told Yahoo Finance that borrowing costs could keep rising. But the job market’s relative strength showed those costs had not yet turned into broader economic stress.

He does not expect that calm to hold forever. It has been a long time since the last credit recession. When one arrives, “it would be worse than people think,” Dimon said in April.

That warning carries extra weight, given the size of what is now at stake. The private credit market alone is worth about $1.7 trillion, and that number has only grown.

Related: Scott Bessent just made a bold move on the bond market

When True Food Kitchen filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on October 4, the chain’s CEO Jeff Chandler tried to make it clear that the company planned to continue operating.

“This process is the best path forward to simplify the business and focus on what we do best: delivering craveable, health-forward food and genuine hospitality. We are confident this step will help us build a stronger True Food Kitchen for the future,” he said in a press release.

True Food Kitchen serves an upscale clientele looking for healthy food. Most of its stores are located in higher-end shopping or lifestyle plazas. That contributed to its financial problems, Chad Van Horn, founder and managing partner of Van Horn Law Group in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., shared with TheStreet.

“True Food Kitchen did not file because people stopped eating there. Sales were essentially flat, about $312 million last year against $314 million the year before, and the reported debt is around $42 million. That is a cost and footprint problem, not a demand problem,” he said.

As part of its Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing, True Food Kitchen shared that it had already closed 12 restaurants. Those locations completed their final service on Oct. 4, but the initial release did not share which locations were closing.

TheStreet compared True Food Kitchen’s current restaurant directory with an archived version of the company’s locations page to identify the 12 restaurants that closed.

Fox Business also independently reported the same 12 locations

These True Food Kitchen locations have closed

Chandler apologized for the impact the closures had on the chain’s employees:

“We know these decisions are especially hard on the team members affected, and we are deeply grateful for their contributions to True Food Kitchen and their communities. We are committed to approaching this difficult moment with care and respect, and we will share information on resources and next steps with affected team members,” he said.

The company’s remaining 34 restaurants across 14 states are open and serving guests as usual. The True Food Kitchen locations that closed are:

Century City: Los Angeles, CA (Westfield Century City)

El Segundo: El Segundo, CA (The Point)

San Diego UTC: San Diego, CA (Westfield UTC)

Miami: Miami, FL

Chicago: Chicago, IL

New Orleans: New Orleans, LA

Bethesda: Bethesda, MD

Edison: Edison, NJ

Hackensack: Hackensack, NJ

Garden City (Long Island): Garden City, NY

Columbus: Columbus, OH

Reston: Reston, VA

True Food Kitchen focuses on healthy food. Shutterstock

A Chapter 11 filing lets you close restaurants

Van Horn thinks that closing struggling locations was a significant factor in the True Food Kitchen filing decision.

“For restaurant chains, Chapter 11 is mostly about leases. Rent is the biggest fixed cost a chain has, and it does not shrink when traffic does. In Chapter 11, a company can reject the leases on locations that lose money, and the Bankruptcy Code caps what a landlord can claim for the rest of the term, generally the greater of one year’s rent or 15% of the remaining term, up to three years,” he told TheStreet.

The shutdowns, he added, speak loudly.

“Closing 12 of 46 restaurants at the outset tells you exactly where the company thinks the losses are,” he wrote.

More Bankruptcy:

Outdoors retailer closing 91 stores in Chapter 11 bankruptcy

97-year-old aerospace manufacturer files Chapter 11 bankruptcy

60-year-old dining chain franchisee files Chapter 11 bankruptcy

Van Horn sees True Food Kitchen as a victim of bigger trends.

“Casual dining has been squeezed between higher labor, food, and rent costs on one side and more careful diners on the other. Several national chains have used Chapter 11 the same way over the last two years: close the losing locations, cut the debt, and either sell or come out smaller,” he added.

True Food Kitchen Chapter 11 basics

Chapter 11 filing: True Food Kitchen and eight affiliated companies filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Oct. 4, 2026, in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas. The lead case is FRC Balance LLC, case No. 26-90806.

Debt: The company reported approximately $42.1 million in funded debt as of the bankruptcy filing. Its petition estimated both assets and liabilities at between $10 million and $50 million.

Financing: True Food has secured a commitment for approximately $20 million in debtor-in-possession financing from HumanCo TFK IV, subject to court approval. The financing is intended to provide liquidity while the company restructures and pursues a sale.

Sale process: The company plans to pursue a court-supervised sale and find a long-term partner or buyer.

Closures: True Food closed 12 restaurants as part of the restructuring, leaving 34 locations operating across 14 states. The company had previously reached a peak of 46 locations.

Major unsecured claims: The company has 16 unsecured creditors with claims exceeding $100,000, including two creditors with claims above $1 million. Shamrock Foods has a claim of approximately $1.2 million.Source: PacerMonitor

Powered by Nvidia’s RTX Spark chip, the latest Windows laptop is designed to run AI models and workloads directly on the device.

For decades, investors concerned about stocks sought succor in the bond market. But these days, the best shield against an outbreak of volatility might just be owning other stocks.

Do you want Freedom Fries with that?

This linguistic flashback is brought to you by the year 2003, when a North Carolina restaurant owner renamed French fries in response to France’s refusal to support or participate in America’s controversial invasion of Iraq. 

Rep. Bob Ney, the Republican chairman of the House Administration Committee at the time, joined the fray with Rep. Walter Jones of North Carolina, ordering the House cafeterias to delete “French” from the names of French fries, French toast, and French bread. 

The menu items were rechristened Freedom fries, Freedom toast, and Freedom bread.

Well, we all know how long that lasted. 

The popularity of “Freedom Fries” faded along with support for the war, and the House cafeterias eventually reverted to the items’ original names.

With Donald Trump’s return to Pennsylvania Avenue, common English names and phrases are going for another wild ride. 

The Gulf of Mexico became “The Gulf of America,” and Trump was so adamant about the change that the Associated Press was banned from the White House for refusing to use the new term.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg used the term ‘Super Intelligence’ in July 2025Bloomberg / Getty Images

Trump issues executive order: ‘Inaugurating the Era of Super Intelligence’

After Trump’s tariff tiff with Canada, the president moved to rename Lake Ontario “Lake America” for U.S. federal use.

The leader of the free world then trained his sights on artificial intelligence, scrubbing the term in favor “Super Intelligence” via a Sept. 29 executive order.

Related: Meta and Microsoft just sent employees a memo about Anthropic

Trump has downplayed warnings from safety experts who want to slow down or strictly regulate the industry.

The order directs executive departments and agencies to use “Super Intelligence” and “SI” in place of “Artificial Intelligence” and “AI” in official correspondence, public communications, websites, reports, policy documents, and other non-statutory documents.

“The terminology used by the Federal Government should reflect the transformative capabilities of these technologies and the limitless opportunities they create for the American people,” the order stated.  

“Accordingly, the term ‘Super Intelligence’ more appropriately captures the promise, potential, and rapidly advancing capabilities of these technologies.”

The executive order also says the executive branch “will not acknowledge” the use of “Artificial Intelligence” and “AI” in applicable settings.

Trump and several top U.S. tech executives also signed a “morally binding” agreement to put controls on artificial intelligence — oops, Super Intelligence.

The tech bros seem to be into the new handle. Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk, who had been using the term for a while, announced he would rebrand SpaceX’s artificial intelligence unit from SpaceXAI to SpaceXSI to align with the Trump administration.

“No more AI. SI. It’s better,” Musk wrote on X, the social media platform that he owns.

Meta Platforms (META) CEO Mark Zuckerberg was using the term long before Trump’s order. In July 2025, he published “Personal Superintelligence for Everyone,” outlining his desire to put this high-level capability directly into the hands of billions of everyday users.

Meta also launched its Meta Superintelligence Labs.

Nevertheless, Zuck took some hits last month on Threads, the social media platform he owns, for employing the term.

“The fact you actually used Trump’s bullsh*t ‘superintelligence’ is so f*cking pathetic,” one user wrote. “What a bootlicking sellout!”

“META has been branding Superintelligence since June of 2025,” another commenter said. “He’s just not going to change it because 47 is trying to hijack it to take credit for the name.  Microsoft and Nvidia have also been using it for over a year.”

Elon Musk announced he would rebrand SpaceX’s artificial intelligence unit from SpaceXAI to SpaceXSI to align with the Trump administration.Finn Gomez / Getty Images

Is the phrase ‘super intelligence’ here to stay?

The question is whether this term will have staying power or whether it will join Freedom Fries in the graveyard of failed phrases.

“I don’t believe the Superintelligence term will last in the way Trump and tech execs are currently using it, based on other patterns we’ve seen,” said Sylvia Sierra, a linguist and Associate Professor of Communication and Rhetorical Studies at Syracuse University. 

“Language change tends to take root when it’s a bottom-up process, rather than a top-down process — people in power telling others how to use language tends not to stick.”

Sierra noted “Freedom Fries” did not catch on because it was a top-down, politically motivated language change.

The North Carolina restaurant owner who started using “Freedom Fries” said he was inspired by similar actions against Germany in World War I, when sauerkraut was called “liberty cabbage.”

“Obviously, that didn’t last,” Sierra said. “Similarly, at that time Salisbury steak and Liberty Steaks were used as an alternative name for hamburgers.”

Superintelligence is a “somewhat tricky case,” she noted, because the term already had a meaning in artificial intelligence discussions before Trump adopted it.

Philosopher Nick Bostrom’s 2014 book, Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies, helped establish the term’s modern usage to refer to machines whose intelligence could vastly exceed that of humans.

“Apparently, he said the word ‘artificial’ makes it sound fake, and it is not fake,” she said. “It’s actually amazing. I think it’s possible Trump likes the sound of ‘superintelligence’ because he enjoys superlatives and adjectives like ‘big,’ ‘huge,’ ‘amazing,’ etc. Or in negative cases, ‘worst,’ ‘horrible,’ etc.”

“In Trump’s own explanation of why he prefers superintelligence to artificial intelligence,” Sierra said, “it’s apparent that he thinks the former makes the word sound more ‘positive,’ and that’s often the effect of using this kind of simplified and extreme language — to cast certain things as good and others as bad, removing nuance.”

A senior Trump Justice Department official recently directed the workforce to replace the term “AI” with “Super Intelligence” in official communications, including in court filings, “when appropriate,” Bloomberg Law reported. The directive followed Trump’s executive order.

Still, Sierra has her doubts.

“My sense is this word might gain some traction temporarily, but it will probably not outlast Trump’s final term as president,” she said.

Related: Musk called Anthropic ‘evil’; SpaceX’s deal with it nearly doubled