US President Donald Trump has said that anyone who fails to adopt the term "superintelligence" in place of "artificial intelligence" will be treated as an "enemy", without explaining what consequences, if any, that would carry.

"The White House considers anyone who uses the term (artificial intelligence) instead of the new, more accepted and accurate term (superintelligence) an enemy!" Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

Trump first floated the new name in a speech to the United Nations General Assembly last month, saying it "sounds much better". In late September, he signed an executive order requiring US government institutions to use the term "superintelligence".

The label cannot be imposed on the private sector, but some companies have already begun to embrace it, most notably Mark Zuckerberg's Meta. Elon Musk has also been using the new term in his posts on X.

The naming dispute is widely seen as political. Trump, a vocal champion of the technology, is seeking to cast it in a more positive light at a time of mounting concern over the security of AI systems and growing criticism of the expansion of data centres across the United States.