President Donald Trump on 10 October 2026.

“No, no, no. This time I’m not doing it… Oceans are different, sir.”

That is what Google chief executive Sundar Pichai said when Donald Trump asked him to rename the Atlantic Ocean, according to Trump. The president told the story at a rally in South Carolina on Wednesday.

Trump said Pichai told him that oceans “cover really a lot of countries”. He told the crowd he would “probably pass” on the idea.

“Please don’t ask us to do that,” Trump quoted Pichai as saying.

Google has not confirmed that the call took place, The Washington Post reported.

“Now we need an ocean”

Trump started with the names he has already changed.

“So we have a lake and we have a gulf. Now we need a river and we need an ocean,” he said.

He said he would put “Trump” or “America” only on the Atlantic or the Pacific. So he called Google Maps, which he said had been “really great with the lake”.

He called Pichai and Google co-founder Sergey Brin “totally brilliant guys”.…