Mark Zuckerberg Has Higher IQ And EQ Than Elon Musk, Study Shows

Mark Zuckerberg is smarter and more emotionally intelligent than Elon Musk, a speech analysis focused on CEOs has suggested.

In the 2023 study, Preply analyzed the dialogue of 100 American executives in videos available on YouTube to create its intelligence rankings.

Preply noted that people's proficiency in language, including their vocabulary, use of nuanced phrases, and the complexity of their sentence structures, is "a testament to their cleverness and competence."

According to the study, the most intelligent CEO among the list was artificial intelligence company DeepMind's Demis Hassabis, who scored 87.33.

Blackstone's Stephen Schwarzman and Berkshire Hathaway's Warren Buffett ranked second and third with scores of 74.33 and 74, respectively.

The other CEOs that made the top 10 were Goldman Sachs' David Solomon (71.33), Amazon's former CEO Jeff Bezos (71), NVIDIA's Jensen Huang (70.33), Netflix's Reed Hastings (70), Meta's Zuckerberg (69.67), Disney's Bob Iger (69.33), and Citadel's Ken Griffin (68).

Preply ranked Musk 16th on its list with a score of 64.33.

The evaluation was based on the analysis of transcripts from public appearances by the executives, with each transcript scored out of a possible 100 points. Criteria included vocabulary breadth, vocabulary sophistication, textual readability, critical thinking, and contextual relevance.

Preply's study also delved into emotional intelligence, measured by the number of "I" statements used by CEOs in public dialogue. These statements indicate a speaker's ability to directly convey emotions, the study said.

According to the analysis, the top five emotionally intelligent CEOs were Progressive's Tricia Griffith, Solomon, Twitch's Dan Clancy, Elevance Health's Gail K. Boudreaux, and Buffett.

Zuckerberg also ranked higher than Musk on this list, coming in ninth. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO ranked 10th in terms of emotional intelligence.

The study was published a few months after Musk and Zuckerberg made headlines for engaging in a back-and-forth on social media.

In June 2023, Musk challenged Zuckerberg via X, formerly Twitter, to a "cage match" after Meta-owned Instagram announced plans to rival Twitter with a text-based social media platform.

The Facebook founder, who won an amateur Brazilian jiu-jitsu competition shortly before Musk threw shade at him, immediately accepted the fight offer.

UFC president Dana White later told TMZ that he spoke with both billionaires and that they were "dead serious" about the matchup.

But in August that year, just weeks after the launch of Threads, Zuckerberg called off the proposed cage match, accusing Musk of not being serious about the challenge.

"I offered a real date. Dana White offered to make this a legit competition for charity," Zuckerberg wrote on Threads.

"Elon won't confirm a date, then says he needs surgery, and now asks to do a practice round in my backyard instead," he added. "If Elon ever gets serious about a real date and official event, he knows how to reach me."

Musk responded by mocking Zuckerberg, writing on X: "Zuck is a chicken."