What is Elon Musk’s IQ?

by Annu99
September 10, 2023September 10, 2023
33 Comments

What is Elon Musk’s IQ? 2024

Humans are very good at guessing things they can’t know by collecting all the guesses and then taking the average. Francis Galton found that crowds came within 1% of guessing the number of beans in a jar at a fair by taking the average guess number.

My estimate is 215, based primarily on his earlier aptitude tests, his ability to read and apply technical information, and his ability to use numbers to make process changes unique in the history of a complicated industry.

I am more qualified to make this estimate than average because I studied Elon Musk specifically to guess his IQ and have successfully guessed how he would think in some areas.

On January 7, 2021, Elon Musk passed Amazon founder Jeff Bezos to become the richest person in the world. A 6% increase in Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) stock in the same week pushed up the CEO’s stock stocks and options by $ 10 billion.

At the time of going to press, Musk’s total net worth was $ 209 billion, according to Bloomberg’s real-time billionaire tracker. On the other hand, Bezos currently sits $ 23 billion below with a net worth of $ 186 billion.

That being said, there is no doubt that Musk’s intelligence and prowess make him a successful businessman. The CEO has several success stories linked to his name, from Zip2 to PayPal, Tesla, and SpaceX. More recently, he obtained the title of “true iron man.”

In this article, I will go over everything (or at least most) you need to know about Musk – from his IQ to his personality, business, lifestyle, investments, and bold innovations.

Without further ado, let’s go …

Elon Musk’s IQ: There is no official data to confirm Elon Musk’s IQ. However, it is estimated to be around 155. In some settings, most people’s IQs are between 85 and 115, with the average being 100.

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Over 95% of the world’s population is below 130, while the IQ of notable brains such as Hawking and Einstein is around 160. But there is no reason to feel sad if you have taken your IQ test. And that it falls below 100.

In a real sense, an IQ test includes a series of psychological tests that assess your cognitive abilities. A high IQ is not a guarantee of success, and a low IQ is not a guarantee of failure.

So, what exactly was it for Elon Musk? Was it a high IQ, or were there other factors involved?

In NLP terms, this is called modeling his strategies. It’s something like that, honed by guessing the IQs of people with documentation and then seeing the actual numbers. I’ve gotten reasonably good at these guesses and am within 2-5%.

My estimate of his IQ would be higher, but I spoke to Elon face-to-face about some things that were very crucial to the achievement of his larger goals and was stunned to see he had not considered the implications.

Some of these were bullets dodged, things that authentic journalists should have asked and would have led to scientific criticism if Musk’s answers had been printed.

155 is still high, and it’s far higher than the IQ of most billionaires. I know 18 billionaires, and Musk has a higher estimated IQ than any.

Edit: After over 32,000 views, I have yet to have a single person give me a different number. (That will likely change now that I posted that sentence.)

Suppose I were a data scientist (yes, they exist and are in high demand). In that case, 32,000 without a different number is a pretty interesting result and just as relevant as someone’s claim about their IQ presented without evidence.

What is Elon Musk’s IQ?

Seriously – have you ever seen someone claim an IQ, then offer to take a test and prove it?

I didn’t think so. Even if someone claiming to be Elon Musk came onto Quora and posted, “My IQ is 200”, who would argue that that would settle the issue any more than my answer?

When skeptical, you can always argue or ask one more question. And what would be the payoff for Elon to say this?

What is Elon Musk’s IQ

Whatever his IQ is, if it’s 160 and above – genius level, according to popular acclaim, that has no scientific basis – there would be a backlash against saying this, and thus no incentive to go to this point. If it’s lower, why not just let my number stand?

I mention this because, several times a week, someone freaks out about this answer. How many people get upset by this question? My answer, or both, is fascinating. I have 300 questions and answers on Quora, but this one tweaks people.

People like to post on Quora’s words to the effect that IQ is irrelevant. The experience of this Elon Musk IQ question has taught me that some people get emotional about discussions of someone’s IQ, and anything that gets people emotional is the opposite of irrelevant.

Put another way, what you think of people who guess IQs says more about you than the person guessing. If a person offering an opinion upsets you, you should bring that up in your next therapy session. He is above average, perhaps even genius, but nowhere near as high as people think—he is no Nikola Tesla or Isaac Newton.

What is this based on?

Remember, Elon has been working on rockets, trains, solar, and electric cars for over a hundred years. Nothing Elon is creating is new (he does things cheaper).

Much of the technology rests on decades-old tech (like lithium batteries in electric cars and crystalline silicon in solar panels). As an example of age-old ideas, Edison had an electric car in 1910 that participated in a 1000-mile endurance run.

Elon’s high school and college grades weren’t all A’s, not that this always matters. But, graduating summa cum laude can prove mastery in the academic world.

His “mad” skills are often solely based on the work of other engineers—engineers who have said Elon’s math, science, and programming skills are far below their own (that would be the case unless you’re exercising those skills regularly).

Time and time again, Elon has taken credit, as most visionaries do, for the work of his employees. Hey, there’s nothing wrong with that…just realize he isn’t doing all these things himself. He’s the idea guy, driving innovation—not the engineer.

People claim Elon has a photographic memory; he does not. Hundreds of people are supporting Elon throughout his journey in this life. He is heavily dependent on people remembering things for him. His long-serving secretary of 12 years, who he eventually fired, said she managed most of Elon’s life.

For as many accomplishments Elon has managed to glean, he has failed equally as much. Hey, there is nothing wrong with this, either. It just shows he is human. Elon has inspired hope in fields that we’re dying or almost dead. That doesn’t require a high IQ, nor should it.

Elon has never taken an official IQ test—I doubt he ever will—but if I had to guess, I’d say his IQ is in the range of 145–155, not 200–250, as some claim. Possibly the number one attribute driving down Elon’s [publicly perceived] IQ score…is money.

Lavish lifestyles have never cultivated extreme genius (only full immersion in the subject matter can do that). The more wealth Elon accumulates, the further he will drift from the genius of Edward Witten, Hawking, Einstein, Tesla, Faraday, Leonardo da Vinci, etc., etc Something special transpires when genius is forged in the fires of academic or professional adversity.

A larger concern of mine…is how Elon treats employees, which is abysmal. He has a South African temperament, meaning explosive. The reputation he is gaining in the engineering community is dreadful, bordering on psychotic.

Read the book on Elon by Ashlee Vance. You’ll witness Elon’s genius, as well as his handicaps. Online reviews are further examples of where Elon needs improvement. Ultimately, Elon’s emotional IQ will matter most—which he needs to work on.

What makes Elon Musk different?

You’ve learned a thing or two about Musk. In closing, I would like to answer what makes Elon different. Is that his high IQ, or does everything he touches turn to gold?

As I said earlier, a high IQ is no guarantee of success. There are a lot of “fail” people with high IQs. Being smart doesn’t mean things will be handed to you on a golden platter.

Musk has a unique ability to see things that others don’t. Funny enough, Musk doesn’t also describe himself as an entrepreneur or a businessman. He calls himself a technologist, inventor, and engineer. His brother, Kimbal, put it perfectly when he said:

[Musk is] able to see things more clearly in a way that no one else I know can understand. There is one thing in chess where you can see 12 moves forward if you are a grandmaster. And in any particular situation, Elon can see things move forward.

Editorial Reviews

“Along with views of youth and early geekdom…[Vance] relates suspenseful accounts of technical and financial crises, conducts tours of Musk’s factories…and brings his story up to early 2016.

Overall, the author offers a picture of a brilliant, driven man…A modern American success story, neither overly earnest nor unreservedly adulatory.” (Kirkus Reviews)

“An informative and easy-to-follow biography of one of today’s top innovators for young readers.

(Booklist) “Vance maintains a lively pace and explains the groundbreaking technology in a way that is accessible and exciting…Highly recommended for high school and ambitious middle school readers for its insights into Musk, technology, and venture capitalism.” (School Library Journal)

“Musk may not be as instantly recognizable to teens as Zuckerberg or Jobs, but given his work with PayPal, Tesla, and SpaceX, he should be. Vance delves into all of his work with detailed passion. (Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books)

“A valuable addition to STEM-themed collections.” (Voice of Youth Advocates (VOYA))

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He said this could happen if the cars could drive over long distances autonomously or work in shifts, leaving drivers to relax while others drive and only use battery power while they are out. “Even if we build a bunch of battery power we can get thousands of miles out of a single charge,”

Elon Musk said. “If we had a lot of battery power that could solve the problem by allowing you to drive almost anywhere if you have the power to charge the battery.”

Elon Musk had a big idea about using super-efficient airplanes for space travel, building spaceships and flying them to Mars’s orbit, and then landing them, drawing on his expertise in rocket propulsion engineering. “I think the risk of flying a car is not greater than flying a plane today,” he said. “It’s not ten times more dangerous.

It’s maybe 100 times less dangerous than flying a plane. So it’s quite easy to do that with a rocket, especially if we do a one-way trip.”

But Musk revealed that he was far from sure that the price of the first vehicles would be quite high, saying he did not think they would come close to the $100 million costs of the SpaceX rocket, which rockets into space but lands like a jet.

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