For decades, Elon Musk has been hailed as a tech visionary of extraordinary intellect, but his biographer Seth Abramson is now saying that Elon Musk’s IQ is not as high as previously thought.
In a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter before Musk bought it, Abramson argued that Elon Musk’s IQ is not higher than 110.
“As an Elon Musk biographer, I would peg his IQ as between 100 and 110. There’s zero evidence in his biography of anything higher,” Abramson wrote. “And I want to repeat that now, lest you think it a typo. There’s zero evidence, from his life history, of Musk having anything higher than a 110 IQ.”
If Abramson’s assertion is true, this would mean that Musk is of ‘average intelligence’ and a far cry from the ‘gifted’ tech visionary that conventional wisdom has him to be.
Critics of Abramson’s conclusion pushed back, noting that Musk has achieved significant milestones in space exploration in a relatively short period of time.
Abramson, meanwhile, doubled down on his argument that Musk is of average intelligence. He argued that Musk hasn’t really developed anything, he just pays people to do the work that makes his ventures successful.
“As a business manager he is atrocious, relying on luck and willingness of workers to abuse themselves on the back end using his money to avoid legal complications of trying to run a business this way,” Abramson argued.
“There’s no doubt Musk is rich,” he added. “There’s no doubt his companies have achieved a lot. There’s no doubt that he’s audacious and thinks big. None of that has anything to do with intelligence.”
Abramson concluded by comparing Musk to a con man, writing: “Many con men are rich, in certain limited respects successful, and are known for audacity.”
Whatever Elon Musk’s IQ is does not really matter since IQ is an antiquated way to measure a person’s intelligence.
However, Musk’s intelligence has been called into question since his far-right shift and his willingness to embrace right wing conspiracy theories and outright lies.
His job in the Trump administration as the de facto head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is doing nothing to quiet those questions amid a series of major blunders.
Among DOGE’s main blunders were the firings of staff at the National Nuclear Security Administration who is responsible for overseeing the country’s nuclear stockpile and Department of Agriculture staff working on a response to the H5N1 avian flu outbreak.
They were subsequently rehired after DOGE members found out how critical their roles are.
