Who currently holds the highest recorded IQ, and how reliable are extraordinary intelligence test scores?

Last weekend, a friend and I were discussing famous geniuses and started wondering whether extreme IQ scores are really comparable. Some numbers online seem unbelievably high. Who is usually considered to have the highest recorded IQ, and how trustworthy are those claims?

Numbers at the far end of the IQ scale are often discussed because they sound impressive, but interpreting them is not always straightforward. Different tests emphasize different skills, and historical records can be difficult to verify. The broader conversation is usually more interesting than the exact number itself.

I got curious about extraordinary IQ claims after seeing wildly different numbers mentioned in articles and videos. Some sources treated them as established facts, while others questioned how those scores were measured. To sort it out, I read article about highest IQ in history https://memoryos.com/article/who-has-the-highest-iq, which gave a clear overview of the people most often associated with exceptional results. It also explained that very high scores can be difficult to compare because tests vary and older records are not always standardized. That context made the topic much easier to understand. Since then, I’ve looked at extreme IQ figures with more interest and a bit more caution.