What is Elon Musk’s IQ? (+ details about Elon Musk)
By
OptimistMinds
As a BetterHelp affiliate, we may receive compensation from BetterHelp if you purchase products or services through the links provided.
Author bio
The Optimistminds editorial team is made up of psychologists, psychiatrists and mental health professionals. Each article is written by a team member with exposure to and experience in the subject matter. The article then gets reviewed by a more senior editorial member. This is someone with extensive knowledge of the subject matter and highly cited published material.
In this brief guide, we will look at Elon Musk’s IQ as well as other details about Elon Musk.
Elon Musk’s IQ
Elon Musk’s IQ is thought to be around 155, but it is not confirmed what his IQ is as he has never had, or released the results of, an IQ assessment.
It is assumed that ELon Musk’s IQ must be very high given how successful all his business ventures have been and the kind of visionary ideas he has had about space travel and Brain Machine Interfaces, but it is not necessary for someone to have an exceptionally high IQ for them to also have great ideas.
Furthermore, according to the Wechsler IQ classification, any IQ score over the range of 135 is considered to put the person in the 99th percentile of the population, which means that 99 percent of the people would fall below that level and that seems to be fairly accurate of someone like Elon Musk.
Elon Musk’s IQ is the subject of some debate online also because there exist many different types of classifications where the highest IQ score differs, and where in the Wechsler system the highest possible IQ score is 160, in the Stanford Binet classification it says that anywhere above 144 is “near genius” or highly advanced, while the highest recorded IQ in Stanford Binet IQ test has been 328.
There are various other IQ classifications as well, depending on what test you are using and what aspects of intelligence it assess, because people can also have different types of high intelligences, for instance, Elon Musk’s IQ may be high but he may not necessarily score extremely high on things that have to do with art or music or perhaps sports, compared to the people who are experts in those fields or have that kind of intelligence.
Similarly, someone who has a higher score than Elon Musk’s IQ may not have his vision for the future or the kind of ideas he has about the colonization of Mars and so on, because he thinks in a very unique way that is personal to him.
This proves that Elon Musk’s IQ is not the only thing that serves as a driving force for who he is and what he has accomplished; a lot of factors decide how successful someone might be, and in case of Elon Musk he has had a lot of things go right for him for him to be where he is at.
The CEO of SelfHacked, Joseph Cohen, says about Elon Musk’s IQ and the secrets to his success:
“He just has a lot of abilities that are usually not found in one person.
After interviewing many people, giving them tests, and then assessing their abilities has given me critical insights into what makes people successful – and what we look for in talent.
This study breaks down intelligence in three domains: verbal, reasoning and working memory, and I believe the authors are correct as far as intellectual abilities that predict performance in the modern workplace.
While genetics plays a large role, I think there is a significant role in changing your biology for enhancement.
It’s important to note that you don’t need all of these abilities, or to the same degree as Elon Musk to be successful. I’ve seen people be successful with only one of these. But it’s the combination of these that make Elon Musk so successful, which separates him from the rest of us.”
Elon Musk Biography
Elon Reeve Musk was born June 28, 1971 to a Canadian Mother and South African Father in Pretoria South Africa, and he is a business magnate, industrial designer and engineer.
Elon Musk is most well known for his Space Program and agency, and he is the founder, CEO, CTO and chief designer of SpaceX, which has recently completed the first privately funded flight into space, a landmark moment in the history of space exploration.
Elon Musk was also the early investor, CEO and product architect of Tesla, Inc, founder of The Boring Company, co-founder of Neuralink, and co-founder and initial co-chairman of OpenAI, which may be why there is so much interest about Elon Musk’s IQ, he has been involved in many projects which are all smarter than the other.
Elon Musk was also elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2018, which is a huge honor, and in the same year he was ranked 25th on the Forbes list of The World’s Most Powerful People, as well as a joint-first on the Forbes list of the Most Innovative Leaders of 2019.
Elon Musk’s net worth increased by up to US$7 billion after the end of November 2020 and as of December 8, 2020, Forbes estimated his net worth at US$144.1 billion, which also makes him the second-richest person in the world after Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.
In his role as the CEO of Tesla, Elon Musk is also the longest tenured CEO in history of any automotive manufacturer globally.
Elon Musk Education
Elon Musk’s education does not necessarily reflect the kind of overachievement his career does, and he briefly attended the University of Pretoria before moving to Canada when he was 17 to attend Queen’s University, where he did not get a degree.
After the Queen’s University in Canada, Elon Musk transferred to the University of Pennsylvania two years later, from where he received dual bachelor’s degrees in economics and physics.
After that Elon Musk moved to California in 1995 to begin a Ph.D. in applied physics and material sciences at Stanford University, but dropped out after two days to pursue a business career and co-founded Zip2, a web software company, which was acquired by Compaq for $307 million in 1999.
Elon Musk Notable Companies
Elon Musk founded SpaceX in May 2002 and it was considered to be an aerospace manufacturer and space transport services company, and he served as both CEO and lead designer in this company.
His other amazing venture that was the talk of the world was Neuralink, which is a neurotechnology company focused on developing brain–computer interfaces and which is currently working on creating a device that can essentially read the cortical activity in the brain and show the data on a computer.
Elon Musk also founded The Boring Company, an infrastructure and tunnel construction company focused on tunnels optimized for electric vehicles and he has also envisioned an open-source high-speed transportation system known as the Hyperloop based on the concept of a vactrain.
Elon Musk Children
Elon Musk has 7 children, and his first child died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome when he was only 10 weeks old.
Elon Musk has 5 living children with his first wife, who he is divorced from and shared custody of the children with.
He is currently romantically involved with the canadian singer Grimes, and they recently had a child with whom Musk faced some controversy because of the name he chose.
Elon Musk and Grimes had a son on May 4, 2020 and they said that his name was “X Æ A-12” , however, the name was deemed illegal under California law, because it contained characters that are not in the modern English alphabet, and therefore Elon Musk changed it to “X Æ A-Xii”.
However, the new name led to even more confusion because Æ is not a letter in the modern English alphabet and eventually they named him “X AE A-XII”, with “X” as a first name and “AE A-XII” as a middle name.
Elon Musk and Talulah Riley, his first wife, have 5 children, whose names are Nevada Alexander Musk, Griffin Musk, Kai Musk, Damian Musk, Xavier Musk, Saxon Musk.
Is Elon Musk the Smartest Man Alive?
No, Elon Musk is not the smartest man alive, as according to IQ classifications the smartest man is considered to be Christopher Michael Langan, who is an American Horse Rancher and autodidact.
With the kind of facets there are to intelligence, it cannot be said who the smartest person alive is, because there are so many types of intelligence to begin with.
Even associating intelligence with success may not be an accurate measure of someone’s intelligence, as even according to that there may be many other parameters to be considered.
Conclusion
In this brief guide, we looked at Elon Musk’s IQ as well as other details about Elon Musk.
There is no doubt about the fact that Elon Musk is an exceptionally gifted and talented individual, and the kind of vision he has about the future is unique.
The founder of many amazing things like the company Tesla, Neuralink and of course, SpaceX, Elon Musk’s IQ has been the subject of some debate, because while some people believe that he is a very intellectually superior person, others think that he is just a particularly gifted person who has had the right kind of acumen for business and accomplishing his plans.
If you have any further questions or comments about Elon Musk’s IQ, please feel free to reach out to us at any time.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs): Elon Musk IQ
What is the IQ of Einstein?
The IQ of Albert Einstein is considered to be 160, but it is not based on any specific IQ tests, so it is not necessarily an accurate score.
The most commonly used cIQ classification in the world currently is the Weschler IQ classification, which one might receive by taking the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, or WAIS, and in this classification anyone with a score of 135 or above is in the 99th percentile of the population.
160 is the maximum score a person can receive in the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, which is probably why it is considered to be Einstein’s score as well.
Who has the highest IQ in the world?
According to the Guiness Book of World Records, Marilyn vos Savant was said to have had the highest IQ in the world, and this was ascertained by two tests, the Stanford Binet Intelligence Scale and the mega test, however, it was later clarified that the high IQ score Savant received on the Stanford Binet test was actually due to the use of an older version of the test which may have altered the way her IQ was calculated.
Furthermore, the confusion about the IQ tests available and the possible discrepancies that occurred in the testing procedures, the Guiness book of world records eventually removed the Highest IQ category altogether.
What is the IQ of the smartest person alive?
Christopher Michael Langan is said to the smartest person alive and his IQ is assumed to be around 195-210, which is why many journalists have called him the smartest man in America or even the world.
Christopher Michael Langan, is an American horse rancher and autodidact whose IQ was estimated on ABC’s 20/20 to be between 195 and 210, but the fact that he is not a typical scientist or physicist as most people assume the smartest person alive would be, proves that IQ does not at all mean that the person is going to be in a specific field or be good at specific things and intelligence can be of many types.
Citations
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk
https://www.iq-test.net/elon-musk-iq-and-his-abilities-to-succeed-pms64.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_classification#Wechsler_Intelligence_Scales
Was this helpful?
Take Control of Your Mental Health and Live Your Best Life with BetterHelp Online Therapy
