Updated 29 September 2025
Fame and fortune don’t happen by accident. There’s no easy path to the top, and it takes brains as much as hustle – but out of all those who have made it into the public eye, who has the highest IQ?
EduBirdie surveyed 2,000 American Gen Zers on the celebrities they believe have the sharpest minds. From Silicon Valley startups to Hollywood’s red carpets, these are the famous faces who, according to Gen Z, are not just iconic but seriously intelligent.
You don’t become the world’s richest person without a high IQ, according to Gen Z men, with 60% ranking Elon Musk as the smartest celebrity. His idea of colonizing Mars may be a little out there, but his business acumen speaks for itself: CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI, and owner of the Boring Company, X, and Neuralink. Few others boast such a rich resume.
While Musk tops the list, he’s closely followed by Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg (56%) and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos (53%). Clearly, success in the tech field is a sign of smarts for Gen Zers.
Rounding up the list of smart celebrities? Donald J. Trump. While Democrat voters may have something to say about that, 25% of Gen Z men insist that the President is, in fact, “a very stable genius”, as he previously put it. There’s no denying that amassing a multi-billion-dollar empire takes business acumen, and for Gen Z men, that’s a strong measure of someone’s intelligence.
Big tech leads the rankings of smart, famous people for Gen Z women too, with Elon Musk (34%) and Mark Zuckerberg (30%) topping the star-studded class. Trump, on the other hand, doesn’t get the vote from women, with just 11% believing him to be the smartest person in the room.
Rather, they show support for their fellow females, with 25% ranking singer-turned businesswoman Rihanna at the top. Gifted with far more than a Grammy-winning voice, her smarts enabled her to turn a successful music career into a multi-billion-dollar business empire.
Joining her? Oprah Winfrey, voted top by 24% of Gen Z women. From her full-ride scholarship to Tennessee State University to her media empire spanning television, film, and print, Lady O’s accolades and achievements speak for themselves.
Whether it’s rockets, social networks, or billion-dollar beauty brands, Gen Z isn’t impressed by fame alone — they admire the vision and ability to build something bigger than yourself.
