Terence Tao IQ: 230
Fields Medal 2006. Started university coursework at 9; now a professor at UCLA.
Born 1975MathematicianStanford-Binet, age 9
Terence Tao's IQ explained →230
Childhood ratio score
59 famous names, each tagged by source. Some sat a real test. Many were scored from biographies. The rest are numbers the internet invented.
On a modern test, a score of 200 would be rarer than 1 in 76 billion — more than every person alive, ten times over.
Adult tests like the WAIS-IV top out around 160.
Drag to a score. We'll show how rare it is and which verified name sits closest.
All 59 names in one table. Click a column to sort.
| 01 | Terence Tao Mathematician | 230 | Verified | Stanford-Binet, age 9 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 02 | Marilyn vos Savant Author | 228 | Verified | Stanford-Binet · Mega Test |
| 03 | Christopher Hirata Cosmologist | 225 | Verified | Stanford-Binet, age 12 |
| 04 | Kim Ung-yong Civil engineer | 210 | Verified | Stanford-Binet (1966) |
| 05 | J. W. von Goethe Polymath | ≈210 | Estimated | Cox 1926 |
| 06 | Edith Stern Mathematician, inventor | 203 | Verified | Stanford-Binet (child) |
| 07 | John Stuart Mill Philosopher | ≈200 | Estimated | Cox 1926 |
| 08 | Nikola Tesla Inventor | ≈200 | Estimated | Biographical analysis |
| 09 | Evangelos Katsioulis Psychiatrist | 198 | Verified | High-ceiling tests |
| 10 | Christopher Langan Autodidact | 195 | Verified | Mega Test · Hoeflin |
| 11 | Blaise Pascal Mathematician | ≈195 | Estimated | Cox 1926 |
| 12 | Rick Rosner TV writer | 192 | Verified | Mega Test · Titan Test |
| 13 | Garry Kasparov Chess grandmaster | 190 | Verified | Stern battery (1987) |
| 14 | Magnus Carlsen Chess grandmaster | 190 | Verified | Press estimate |
| 15 | Isaac Newton Mathematician | ≈190 | Estimated | Cox 1926, adjusted |
| 16 | Voltaire Writer | ≈190 | Estimated | Cox 1926 |
| 17 | Bobby Fischer Chess grandmaster | 187 | Verified | Stanford-Binet (school) |
| 18 | Galileo Galilei Astronomer | ≈185 | Estimated | Cox 1926, adjusted |
| 19 | Marie Curie Physicist, chemist | ≈185 | Estimated | Retrospective |
| 20 | Leonardo da Vinci Polymath | ≈180 | Estimated | Cox 1926 · Simonton |
| 21 | Ada Lovelace Mathematician | ≈180 | Estimated | Retrospective |
| 22 | James Woods Actor | ~180 | Reported | Unverified |
| 23 | Rowan Atkinson Comedian, engineer | ~178 | Reported | Unverified |
| 24 | Judit Polgár Chess grandmaster | 170 | Verified | Childhood testing |
| 25 | Paul Allen Microsoft co-founder | 170 | Verified | Biographical sources |
| 26 | Lady Gaga Singer-songwriter | ~166 | Reported | Unverified |
| 27 | Stephen Hawking Theoretical physicist | 160 | Verified | Instrument unspecified |
| 28 | Albert Einstein Theoretical physicist | ≈160 | Estimated | Popular estimate |
| 29 | Bill Gates Microsoft co-founder | ~160 | Reported | No test |
| 30 | Steve Jobs Apple co-founder | ~160 | Reported | No test |
| 31 | Quentin Tarantino Filmmaker | ~160 | Reported | Unverified |
| 32 | Ashton Kutcher Actor, investor | ~160 | Reported | Unverified |
| 33 | W. A. Mozart Composer | ≈155 | Estimated | Cox 1926 |
| 34 | Elon Musk Entrepreneur | ~155 | Reported | No test |
| 35 | Mark Zuckerberg Meta co-founder | ~152 | Reported | No test |
| 36 | Warren Buffett Investor | ~150 | Reported | No test |
| 37 | Kanye West Musician | ~133 | Reported | Self-reported |
| 38 | Jordan Peterson Psychologist | — | Reported | Declined |
| 39 | Neil deGrasse Tyson Astrophysicist | — | Reported | Never tested |
| 40 | Jeff Bezos Amazon founder | — | Reported | No figure |
| 41 | Taylor Swift Singer-songwriter | — | Reported | No figure |
| 42 | MrBeast YouTuber | — | Reported | No figure |
| 43 | Joe Rogan Podcaster | — | Reported | No figure |
| 44 | Larry Page Google co-founder | — | Reported | No figure |
| 45 | Sergey Brin Google co-founder | — | Reported | No figure |
| 46 | Sam Altman CEO, OpenAI | — | Reported | No figure |
| 47 | Jensen Huang CEO, NVIDIA | — | Reported | No figure |
| 48 | Mark Cuban Entrepreneur | — | Reported | No figure |
| 49 | Richard Dawkins Evolutionary biologist | — | Reported | No figure |
| 50 | Noam Chomsky Linguist | — | Reported | No figure |
| 51 | Michio Kaku Physicist | — | Reported | No figure |
| 52 | Natalie Portman Actress | — | Reported | No figure |
| 53 | Conan O'Brien TV host | — | Reported | No figure |
| 54 | Cardi B Rapper | — | Reported | No figure |
| 55 | Sam Harris Neuroscientist | — | Reported | No figure |
| 56 | Brian Cox Particle physicist | — | Reported | No figure |
| 57 | Hikaru Nakamura Chess grandmaster | — | Reported | No figure |
| 58 | Fabiano Caruana Chess grandmaster | — | Reported | No figure |
| 59 | Lex Fridman AI researcher, podcaster | — | Reported | No figure |
These people sat a named, standardized IQ test and the result is on public record. Terence Tao and Marilyn vos Savant hold the highest documented scores. Many top results are childhood Stanford-Binet ratio scores, which run higher than adult tests.
Fields Medal 2006. Started university coursework at 9; now a professor at UCLA.
Held the Guinness record for highest IQ, 1986–89. Long-running “Ask Marilyn” columnist.
Caltech at 14, PhD at 22. Works on dark energy and gravitational lensing.
Guinness-listed highest childhood IQ. Worked with NASA as a child before an academic career in Korea.
Over 100 patents at IBM. Raised in a deliberate enrichment program by her father.
Founded the World Intelligence Network and several high-IQ societies.
Self-taught theorist behind the CTMU. Profiled on 60 Minutes and in Outliers.
Emmy-nominated writer. Among the highest documented Mega and Titan scores.
World Champion 1985–2000. Score from a German press administration of several tests.
World Champion 2013–23. Peak classical rating 2882. Never confirmed a number himself.
World Champion 1972. Figure comes from high-school testing in New York.
Strongest female player in history. Grandmaster at 15, beat 11 world champions.
Co-founded Microsoft; founded the Allen Institute for Brain Science.
Widely circulated but origin unclear. Hawking dismissed people who boast about IQ.
Einstein, Newton, da Vinci and Tesla never took an IQ test. Their numbers are retrospective estimates, most from Catharine Cox's 1926 study The Early Mental Traits of Three Hundred Geniuses.
Among Cox's top-rated subjects, thanks to an unusually well-documented childhood.
What was J. W. von Goethe's IQ? →His father recorded his rigorous education in detail, giving Cox more data than any other figure.
What was John Stuart Mill's IQ? →AC power, the induction motor, the Tesla coil. No testing existed in his adult life.
What was Nikola Tesla's IQ? →Built the first mechanical calculator at 19. Extraordinary documented precocity.
What was Blaise Pascal's IQ? →Cox's childhood-records score was 130; the 190 is her achievement-corrected figure.
What was Isaac Newton's IQ? →Rated highly for early intellectual output across many genres.
What was Voltaire's IQ? →Her childhood-based estimate was substantially lower.
What was Galileo Galilei's IQ? →Only person with Nobels in two sciences. Never formally tested.
What was Marie Curie's IQ? →Sparse childhood records hurt him in Cox's method; Simonton later revised upward.
What was Leonardo da Vinci's IQ? →Wrote the first published program (1843). Based on her mathematical correspondence.
What was Ada Lovelace's IQ? →Never tested. Einstein rejected IQ as a measure of his work.
What was Albert Einstein's IQ? →Cox's method under-weighted musical genius, so his figure is modest.
What was W. A. Mozart's IQ? →Numbers for Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and others circulate widely online, but none comes from a documented IQ test. Here's what each figure is actually based on.
Unverified.Uncited. His MIT attendance is the real, sourced record.
Unverified.Uncited. His Oxford electrical-engineering MSc is documented.
Unverified.Uncited. Early NYU Tisch admission is the real signal.
No test.Uncited. His ~1590 SAT is real, but an SAT is not an IQ score.
No test.Based on a childhood testing anecdote, not a documented result.
Unverified.Uncited. A self-taught high-school dropout.
Unverified.Uncited. Studied biochemical engineering.
No test.Uncited internet estimate, reverse-inferred from achievements.
No test.No source. Reverse-inferred from building Facebook.
No test.Uncited. Buffett says temperament matters more than IQ.
Self-reported.No named test, examiner, or record.
Declined.Lectures on IQ but has never disclosed his own.
Never tested.Says he never took an IQ test.
No figure.No consistent number circulates.
No figure.No documented test and no reliable number.
No figure.Algorithm mastery is a skill, not an IQ.
No figure.No documented test or reliable number.
No figure.Any figure is reverse-inferred from Google.
No figure.No documented test or reliable number.
No figure.No documented IQ exists.
No figure.Any figure is reverse-inferred from NVIDIA.
No figure.No documented IQ or reliable number.
No figure.No published test. His Oxford record is the signal.
No figure.Skeptical of IQ testing himself.
No figure.Built a particle accelerator in his garage — no test.
No figure.Harvard psychology degree and co-authored papers.
No figure.Harvard magna cum laude; Lampoon president.
No figure.No documented test or reliable number.
No figure.UCLA neuroscience PhD is the real record.
No figure.Manchester PhD and CERN work, no test.
No figure.FIDE rating measures chess, not IQ.
No figure.Near-record rating; chess skill is domain-specific.
No figure.No published test or reliable number.
The short version of this page.
Measured on the Stanford-Binet at age 9. Marilyn vos Savant follows at 228. Both are childhood ratio scores.
The quoted 160 is a retrospective estimate from his biography, not a measurement.
The widely shared figure is an uncited internet estimate. Musk has never released a result.
A 200 on the high-ceiling Mega Test is roughly a 170 on the WAIS-IV. Same person, different ruler.
In Cox's 1926 study, Goethe and John Stuart Mill (≈200) were among the highest-rated figures.
Mensa accepts scores at or above the 98th percentile, about 130 on a standard scale.
60 questions, four domain subscores, modern norms. Free, no signup.