He may only be 22 years old, but Jimmy Donaldson—also known by his YouTube name MrBeast—has earned more money than what most people make in a lifetime. What is even more impressive about Jimmy is that not only does he earn those millions of dollars through hard work, but he also donates large amounts of money to charities in need.
Jimmy has been on YouTube for around nine years, posting his first video at 13. In that time, he has racked up 44 million subscribers as of 2020. He was also one of the most viewed YouTubers in 2019. Early in his career, his content covered many topics—ironically some of them revolving around estimating the net worth of other YouTubers. Now, he is mainly known for his attention-grabbing stunts and his highly successful philanthropic projects, such as Team Trees.
So, who is MrBeast?
What is he famous for, and how much money does the YouTuber make?
Personal Life
Jimmy Donaldson was born on the 8th of May 1998 in Greenville, a city in eastern North Carolina. He spent his childhood there with his brother CJ, and his mother. He went to the Greenville Christian Academy, where he later graduated from in 2016.
Philanthropy and Business
While he is best known for his YouTube challenge antics and throwing money around at the participants, Donaldson has also developed a reputation as an entrepreneur and a philanthropist.
Not only is he the co-creator of Team Trees, a collaborative fundraiser that has planted millions of trees, but he has also set up his own fast food burger chain called MrBeast Burger.
The idea behind MrBeast Burger was that diners would be able to place their orders online via varius delivery services, making the restaurant a virtual one.
He also had a hand in creating a mobile game in 2020, called Finger on the App. The aim of this game was to hold your finger on the phone screen for as long as possible, with the last one standing winning as much as $25,000.
If you’re wondering how you can get involved with this game, unfortunately it was a one-time thing, so it is no longer available to play.
As you can see, Donaldson is a hard worker and doesn’t rest on his laurels at all.
It’s hard to dislike the man behind the channel, and though some of the challenges he puts on might seem wasteful and the money could be donated to a better cause, you can’t accuse Donaldson of not giving back.
He is one example of a young YouTube star who has his head firmly screwed on. While many others resort to childish antics and social media spats, Donaldson has kept out of the headlines – for the most part!
Controversies
While he certainly does a lot of philanthropy, and helps a lot of people out, Donaldson has been caught up in a controversy or two over his years as a content creator.
Almost every internet personality has to deal with some controversy in one form or another, and MrBeast was no exception. His stunts had not come without controversy, however. He was accused of using fake dollar bills in his charity stunts of giving away money.
He was also accused of using homophobic language in his past tweets. His scandals, however, pale in comparison to the likes of Jake Paul or PewDiePie and have not affected his earning potential.
YouTube Career
The Beginning
Jimmy, like his other GenZ peers, had an early fascination with platforms like YouTube where content creation was starting to take off. He posted his first video in 2012, when he was just 13 under the channel name—MrBeast6000.
Unlike some of his other YouTube peers like PewDiePie, he did not achieve overnight success—which was understandable as he was only a kid when he started off. It would take several years for his videos to go viral, and to get a hang of YouTube’s algorithm.
Initially, his content content consisted of all kinds of random content, such as Let’s Plays and commentaries on drama between other YouTubers. Let’s Plays are videos of someone providing commentary—often edgy and humorous—while playing the game.
As many other YouTubers like PewDiePie were wildly successful off of Let’s Plays, Jimmy likely thought that he could attract an audience by doing the same. However, these were not MrBeast’s most successful content. He continued making videos for a few more years, until his content finally started to gain traction in 2015 and 2016.
Rise to Success
In 2015, The YouTube star uploaded a series of videos titled ‘Worst Intros’, which highlighted the worst introductions by other YouTubers. These videos started to attract an audience to his YouTube channel as they were highly relevant, engaging and funny. By the middle of 2016, MrBeast’s channel had grown to 30,000 subscribers.
Around this time, Jimmy enrolled in college but eventually dropped out after a few weeks. His mom also asked him to move out of their house in Greenville, as he was 18 and needed to learn living independently.
He finally hacked the YouTube fame game in January 2017 when his video ‘counting to 100,000’ went viral. He had just dropped out of college and decided to make a video of himself counting to 100,000—which took him 44 hours to do. The video started circulating rapidly, earning him thousands of views in a matter of days.
Going Viral
After his viral video, MrBeast finally discovered his niche content—unique content that would bring something new to the table, instead of regurgitating what other YouTubers were doing. He moved on to bigger and more daring stunts, and made videos of them.
He later uploaded similar hilarious stunt videos. Some of his stunts included:
- Counting to 200,000
- Watching paint dry for 1 hour
- Trying to break glass with a 1000 megaphones
- Spinning a fidget spinner for a whole day
- Watching Jake Paul’s ‘It’s Everday Bro’ music video—a video that was slammed for being the most cringeworthy and most disliked video on YouTube—for 10 hours straight
His stunts resonated well with his young audience, and he quickly was able to reach a million subscribers by the end of 2017.
Not all of his stunts were successful, however—which added excitement and appeal to his content. For example, he tried the stunt of trying to stay underwater for 24 hours, but failed due to health issues. Some of his stunts were also quite costly, spending thousands of dollars and hours for one video.
His latest content has been very philanthropic, where he gives out money or cars to other YouTubers or viewers. For example, in one stunt, he opened a car dealership and gave away cars at no cost. He also did a video on donating $10,000 to a random homeless man. As his channel grew, he hired his childhood friends to help with his channel and stunts.
By the end of 2018, it was reported that MrBeast had given away almost $1 million in his stunt charity video donations. As a result, he was referred to as YouTube’s biggest philanthropist.
Through his viral content, he was able to earn millions, which he funneled back into his expensive stunts which created even more viral content. While it was certainly a very costly business model, he continues to make viral content to this day.
How Much Money Does MrBeast Make?
With a fascinating look at his career, this leads us to the question—how much money does MrBeast make? With so many expensive stunts and giveaways, it is harder to estimate MrBeast’s net worth than other YouTubers, and his total wealth is not publicly available.
Also, any sponsorships, brand deals and merchandise sales would need to be taken into account. However, we can make a very rough estimate by looking at his Social Blade and money made per video.
As of 2020, MrBeast’s YouTube stats show that he has over 40 million subscribers and his videos have over 7 billion views. As of October 2020, his channel has a daily average range between $2.5k and $45k. Assuming he makes around $30,000 per day—this would come up to over $10 million per year.
After YouTube’s fees, YouTubers can make between $3-$7 per 1000 views on a monetized video. There is quite a large range here, because monetization can be affected by several things. It depends on the length of the video, how many ads there are on it, location of the audience, how many watch the ads, etc. In 2019, MrBeast garnered an average of 10 million views per video, which translates to about $ 70,000 per video.
MrBeast Net Worth
So we’ve already danced around the topic a few times, but it’s time to get to the big question on everybody’s mind – what is MyBeast’s current net worth?
It’s reported that the YouTuber currently has a net worth of around $16 million, which makes sense given the amount of money he gives away in his vast number of challenge vdeos.
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Frequently Asked Questions About MrBeast
What does MrBeast do for a living?
He is a YouTuber who makes content revolving around expensive or difficult stunts, charity giveaways and challenges. He also promotes companies on his channel, for which he receives compensation. He has promoted companies such as Tik Tok, CSGO Lotto, Quidd, etc.
He has also ventured out into philanthropic efforts. In late 2019, he launched a highly successful fundraising challenge where he was raising money to plant 20 million trees by the end of the year.
The project is called Team Trees, which he launched with a former NASA engineer, Mark Rober. The challenge was supported by other successful YouTubers like PewDiePie as well as high profile figures like Jack Dorsey and Elon Musk.
Who is MrBeast dating?
He is currently dating Instagram influencer Maddy Spidell, who he had gone public with since June 2019. Spidell has mentioned on her Twitter how much she values MrBeast’s funny and loving personality, plus his love of anime over his wealth.
Where does MrBeast live?
MrBeast currently lives in his hometown of Greenville, North Carolina.
Which YouTubers does MrBeast support?
He threw his support behind PewDiePie during his amusing battle with T-series for the channel with the most subscribers. MrBeast showed his support by making a video of himself saying PewDiePie a 100,000 times. He also wore ‘Sub 2 PewDiePie’ shirts to the Super Bowl. PewdiePie reciprocated his support supporting MrBeast’s Team Trees challenge.
A Final Word From Run Gun Shoot
Jimmy Donaldson, aka MrBeast, rose to YouTube stardom rapidly with his innovative challenge ideas and big money giveaways.
He has an estimated net worth of $16 million as of 2021.
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