Elon Musk Certainly Thinks He's a Genius, but Is That Actually the Case?

Few people have made news over the past few years the way that Elon Musk has. Musk has become the world's wealthiest man, and he's used that wealth to buy Twitter and then to take on a central role inside the administration of Donald Trump.

Musk has been charged with finding efficiencies within the government, and some have argued that he will be uniquely good at this in part because of his general acumen. Musk's wealth and success have led some to believe that he's a genius, but is that actually the case? Here's what we know.

Whether Musk is actually a genius or not is up for debate. Musk reportedly has a high IQ, and he certainly displays many of the eccentricities of a genius. That, coupled with the success of PayPal and Tesla, both of which he had a huge role in, has led some to believe that Musk has a pretty big brain. What's equally clear, though, is that Musk thinks a lot of his own abilities, and certainly believes himself to be a genius.

Genius is a word without any fixed definition. IQ is one way to measure it, but we don't know his exact IQ, and he's not in a formal organization like MENSA. The only thing we have to go on, then, is his success in the business world and his immense wealth. Geniuses might be uniquely capable of acquiring wealth, but not all wealthy people are geniuses. Many of them are just exceptionally ruthless or unscrupulous, and that willingness to consolidate wealth at any cost makes them wealthy.

It's also possible that Musk is gifted in some areas, but those areas don't reflect his ability to do any kind of work. Anyone who has seen Musk be fact-checked in real-time in his claims about government fraud and abuse is likely aware that he doesn't seem to have the most sophisticated understanding of the federal government. Of course, that hasn't stopped him from making claims that are easily falsified.

Whether Musk is a genius or not, then, it doesn't mean that he has the knowledge required to dismantle the federal government without doing some damage. We've already seen several cases of mass firings of federal employees that the administration has had to walk back, and we don't yet know what the long-term ramifications of all these firings might be.

Musk's acumen in the business world, and his undeniable success, might not translate cleanly into working in the federal government, especially if he hasn't done the hard work to understand the way it actually works. Being a genius doesn't mean that you automatically know everything. It just means that you're a uniquely gifted thinker who may come up with innovative ideas.

If Musk is taking a bulldozer through the federal bureaucracy and hasn't even taken the time to understand what it does, there could be tons of unintended consequences. Genius or not, those consequences are not ones that even he could predict.