Attorney, journalist, and Elon Musk biographer Seth Abramson eviscerated both Elon Musk and his “fanboys” who have attempted to use the billionaire’s IQ as an indication of his intellectual prowess in a series of messages shared on X Thursday evening and into Friday.
The article literally says “110” which is indeed above average. Furthermore, I don’t think anyone is underestimating Elon at this point: he built a cult of personality over twenty years that last to this day (smaller than it was a decade ago, but still there) and he bought the presidency.
He can do all those things and not be generally smart. His skill, like trump’s, is lying in a distracting way. Neither of them is likely to ever invent a new thing or necessarily even be good at anything else. But they don’t need to, society values distracting liars above most everything else.
You cannot reason a man out of a position he did not reason himself into.
If you’re looking at a guy’s resume and it includes graduating from UPENN and getting admitted into Stanford, then launching/guiding/acquiring multiple successful companies and you’re then concluding “nah this guy ain’t smart” or “i’m not sure if he’s smart” it’s a position you reached not through logic/reason.
The author is taking a shot in the dark on Musk’s IQ and what the author wants it to be. 110 is normie. Isaacson, a very respected biographer, claims Musk’s SAT was 1400, which would have put him somewhere around ~93 percentile. I want to see proof of that score, but I’d guess Musk’ IQ is around 125-130 and around 95-97 percentile.
Trying to boil Musk’s success down simply to lying is vastly underestimating him and playing in his favor.