MrBeast: Rise of 25-Year-Old YouTube Star Jimmy Donaldson

mrbeast youtube — MrBeast, aka Jimmy Donaldson, has grown his YouTube following to more than 130 million. Here's how he did it.

MrBeast is one of the most-viewed YouTubers thanks to his attention-grabbing stunts.
MrBeast sued his burger brand for making "terrible quality" food, and this week they fired back.
See how the 25-year-old got his start making online videos.

At 24 years old, Jimmy Donaldson, also known as MrBeast, is one of the most-viewed and highest-paid creators on YouTube.

His early viral videos included challenging feats like reading every word in the dictionary or counting from zero to 100,000 for 40 straight hours.

Lately, he's become known for his stunt philanthropy, giving away money or committing acts of kindness and filming them for content. Recently, Donaldson uploaded a video "curing" 1,000 people's blindness by paying for eye surgeries.

His ambitious challenges and money giveaways have helped him grow his channel to roughly 131 million subscribers, the most in YouTube's history.

He's also an entrepreneur who launched virtual restaurant brand MrBeast Burger in 2020 and a supposedly better-for-you chocolate business called Feastables in 2022.

Last week, though, Donaldson sued Virtual Dining Concepts, the restaurant firm behind his burger brand by accusing it of making "terrible quality" burgers. This week, VDC fired back against MrBeast with a "breach of contract" suit.

"Armed with his celebrity and many millions of followers, Donaldson disparaged the brand and plaintiffs in a slew of highly damaging social media posts, which were quickly amplified in numerous media outlets, just as he intended," the VDC suit said, noting that the brand's value was in the "nine-figure range."

Check out more on MrBeast's rise to fame:

MrBeast was born as Jimmy Donaldson on May 7, 1998.

greenville north caroline — Greenville, North Carolina.

The YouTube star and his brother, CJ, grew up in eastern North Carolina in the city of Greenville. In 2016, he graduated from Greenville Christian Academy, a private high school in the area.

Source: Business North Carolina

Donaldson uploaded his first YouTube in February 2012, when he was just 13 years old.

mrbeast youtube 2015 — MrBeast in a video in 2015.

The teenager began his YouTube career posting videos under the username "MrBeast6000." For the first few years, Donaldson attempted, unsuccessfully, to master the YouTube algorithm by creating the content he thought would attract the largest audience.

Source: Newsweek, Casey Neistat on YouTube

As MrBeast attempted to game YouTube's algorithm, the aspiring YouTuber went through stages of trends on his channel: funny compilations of playing "Minecraft" and "Call of Duty," estimating YouTubers' wealth, offering tips and tricks to aspiring creators, and commentating on YouTuber drama. MrBeast himself made very few appearances in his videos in the early days.

mrbeast youtube gaming — MrBeast playing "Call of Duty" on his channel in 2014.

Source: Newsweek

MrBeast started to gain a following in 2015 and 2016 thanks to his "worst intros" series of videos, which rounded up and poked fun at YouTuber introductions he discovered on the platform. By mid-2016, MrBeast hit 30,000 subscribers.

Source: MrBeast on YouTube

In late 2016, MrBeast enrolled in college. The YouTuber said he lasted only two weeks before he dropped out, telling his mom: "I'd rather be poor than do anything besides YouTube." His mom made him move out of his childhood home North Carolina at 18 because "she loves me and just wanted me to be successful," MrBeast later said.

Source: MrBeast on Twitter

MrBeast first went viral in January 2017, when he uploaded a video showing himself counting to 100,000 — which he later revealed took him 44 hours. "I just really wanted it," MrBeast later said about the challenge. "I had dropped out of college, I wasn't really making much. I knew it would go viral."

Source: Casey Neistat on YouTube

After that first video went viral, MrBeast found what the YouTube algorithm liked. He quickly amassed more views with similar stunts, like spinning a fidget spinner for 24 hours and watching Jake Paul's "It's Everyday Bro" music video for 10 hours straight. By November 2017, MrBeast reached 1 million subscribers.

Source: MrBeast on Twitter

Now, MrBeast has a few types of videos that serve as his bread-and-butter on his channel.

mrbeast challenge — MrBeast, left, watching over a challenge competing for $1 million.

He still puts on exhausting, hours-long stunts — which have been referred to as "junklord YouTube" — as well as last-person-to-leave challenges in which he gives out thousands of dollars. These videos' titles range from "Going Through the Same Drive Thru 1,000 Times" to "Last To Remove Hand, Gets Lamborghini Challenge."

Source: The Verge

MrBeast also puts on attention-grabbing donations and charity stunts.

He once opened up a car dealership where he gave out cars for free, and is known to dole out thousands of dollars to small streamers on Twitch and YouTube, as well as to waitresses and Uber drivers in person.

As Donaldson has grown his channel, he was able to hire four of his childhood friends — Chris, Chandler, Garret, and Jake — to work for him and his YouTube channel.

The group often makes cameos in some of MrBeast's wildest last-person-to-leave challenges, and each one has become an iconic name in the MrBeast empire.

Source: Newsweek

By December 2018, MrBeast had given out $1 million through his outlandish stunts, earning him the title of "YouTube's biggest philanthropist."

MrBeast is a product of his own viral content: He's only able to give out these thousands of dollars thanks to six-figure brand deals to fund in-video ads.

Source: MrBeast on YouTube

MrBeast has been credited with helping to launch a new style of expensive stunt videos on YouTube in which creators pull off elaborate challenges and large-scale sponsored giveaways.

Source: The Verge

However, MrBeast's success hasn't come without controversy.

In 2018, The Atlantic unearthed a series of old, since-deleted tweets from MrBeast in which he uses homophobic slurs and the idea of being gay as a punchline for jokes. At the time of the article, his Twitter bio read: "just because I'm gai doesn't mean I'm gay." MrBeast defended himself as "not offensive in the slightest bit in anything I do."

Source: The Atlantic

MrBeast has also been accused of giving away fake money after critics found that bills used in a November 2019 video were not of legal tender.

MrBeast later said he gave out fake bills to mitigate the risk of a dangerous rush of people clamoring over free money, and claimed he later exchanged the fake bills with real checks for people in the video.

Source: Dexerto

Over the years, MrBeast has revealed a few details about his life.

A screenshot of MrBeast — MrBeast has 128 million subscribers on YouTube.

The 22-year-old has shared that he has Crohn's disease, a chronic inflammatory bowel disease. In June 2019, MrBeast first shared on Instagram he was dating Maddy Spidell. "i don't want mr beast for his money, just want a bf with good taste in anime who can make me laugh," Spidell wrote on Twitter the month before.

We are simple people. We see a new pewdiepie video, we watch it.

A post shared by MrBeast (@mrbeast) on Jun 16, 2019 at 12:17pm PDTJun 16, 2019 at 12:17pm PDT

Source: Maddy Spidell on Twitter

In late 2018, MrBeast harnessed his notoriety for elaborate stunts to throw his support behind PewDiePie, the popular YouTuber who was locked in a battle for the spot as the most-subscribed-to YouTube channel (a title he's since lost to T-Series).

In true form, MrBeast pulled out all the stops: he recorded a 12-hour video saying "PewDiePie" 100,000 times, and turned up at the Super Bowl in "Sub 2 PewDiePie" shirts.

Source: Business Insider

In late 2019, MrBeast launched — and successfully completed — a fundraising campaign called #TeamTrees to plant 20 million trees by the end of the year.

The campaign gathered the support of more than 600 influencers and received donations from tech execs like Elon Musk and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, and YouTube stars like Jeffree Star and PewDiePie.

Source: Business Insider, Team Trees

MrBeast was one of the most-viewed creators on all of YouTube in 2020.

He's accrued more than 10 million views on every video he's uploaded in the past two years, displaying just how successful he is at going viral. YouTube put him as the top creator of 2020, beating out other viral sensations like Dream and James Charles. His net worth isn't publicly available, but he's said that most of his $1 million donations are funded by brand deals.

Source: Business Insider, MrBeast on Twitter, The Verge

2020 was a big year for MrBeast, with two of the largest collaborations that he's ever attempted on his channel.

Streamed in April 2020, Donaldson gathered 32 of the world's biggest influencers to take part in a Rock/Paper/Scissors competition for $250,000. That stream was watched 38 million times in under a year but he wasn't content with just one event. In October of that year, he put on a $300,000 influencer trivia tournament that was won by the D'Amelio family. Mild controversy broke out after some online accused the family of cheating by having multiple people take part in the contest.

Source: YouTube, Insider

As he gained fans, MrBeast's videos also grew more ambitious. His average cost of making a video climbed from $10,000 to $300,000 by 2020.

Source: Bloomberg

He also launched his own charity organization in late 2020 called Beast Philanthropy. Its website says it's committed to providing "long-lasting relief to individuals suffering from homelessness, hunger, and poverty."

In December 2020, MrBeast opened up a restaurant that would pay people to eat at it. Weeks later, he launched his own MrBeast Burger franchise in dozens of cities.

Donaldson opened up over 300 delivery-only locations across the United States, allowing fans the chance to order a MrBeast burger from an app or UberEats.

Source: Mashed

In 2021, MrBeast has continued uploading outlandish and expensive videos.

mr beast new videos ice cream — In 2020, MrBeast continued making outlandish and expensive videos.

Donaldson's most recent 2021 videos have him buying all the items in five stores and spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on expensive food.

Source: YouTube

In February 2021, Donaldson made a guest appearance on the Clubhouse app causing it to crash.

Donaldson spoke on the app about how to succeed on YouTube, which brought in a massive influx of new downloads and users for the app, causing it to crash.

In April of that year, he faced backlash from some fans who accused him of collaborating in a "pump-and-dump" scheme after he promoted the cryptocurrency Refinable, which quickly crashed after its launch.

Source: New York Times

In May 2021, past employees of Donaldson told The New York Times that he created a "hostile work environment" and that he made "unreasonable demands."

11 employees shared their experience with the NY Times, with the outlet saying that Donaldson's "demeanor changed when the cameras weren't around."

Source: The NY Times

In 2021, MrBeast surpassed 53 million YouTube subscribers. He also revealed that he strives for perfection with his videos — to the extent he already scrapped at least three videos in 2020 that he spent $100,000 on producing.

Source: Dexerto

In January 2022, MrBeast was ranked the highest-paid YouTube star by Forbes for the first time. The publication estimated that he earned $54 million in 2021, more than celebs like Billie Eilish and Kim Kardashian.

Kim Kardashian's Skims campaign includes two "The White Lotus" actresses.

Source: Forbes

In July 2022, MrBeast hit another milestone: he became the second YouTube creator to hit 100 million subscribers on YouTube after PewDiePie.

MrBeast and Pewdiepie. — MrBeast and PewDiePie.

By November, he surpassed PewDiePie's subscribers. MrBeast now has 131 million subscribers on YouTube, more than any other creator on the platform.

In September 2022, MrBeast revealed that he was offered $1 billion for his content empire but turned it down.

A picture of MrBeast during the interview. — Donaldson appeared on an episode of The Iced Coffee Podcast posted on September 27.

Source: Insider

That same month, he opened the first physical location of Beast Burger in New Jersey. Thousands of people showed up on the opening day.

Source: NJ.com

In October of last year, MrBeast began speaking to investors, looking to raise $150 million for his YouTube and food business at a $1.5 billion valuation.

MrBeast at the MrBeast Burger — Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast).

Source: Axios

In December, MrBeast tweeted, "Can I be the new Twitter CEO?" Elon Musk, who owns Twitter, responded, "It's not out of the question."

A picture of MrBeast and a picture of Elon Musk. — Donaldson has previously described Musk as one of his biggest inspirations.

MrBeast has said he looks up to Musk. "I really want to be Elon one day," he wrote on Twitter in 2020.

In January 2023, MrBeast said he plans to give away "every penny" before he dies.

MrBeast with throngs of fans at a shopping mall

"No matter how big I get I'll never own a mansion, yacht, Lamborghini etc. All I want is to make the best videos possible and help as many people as I can while doing it," he once said.

In December 2020, he launched MrBeast Burger, a virtual restaurant brand.

MrBeast takes a selfie with a young fan at the launch of his burger brand.

Dave Kotinsky

The brand, which was launched in partnership with a restaurant group called Virtual Dining Concepts, is sold in hundreds of restaurants that are trying to earn additional revenue.

In January 2022 he launched a chocolate business called Feastables that makes plant-based, gluten-free chocolate bars.

The brand sold more than 1 million bars of chocolate within the first 72 hours of launch, and had already earned over $10 million in sales by that May, it said.

Nik Sharma, CEO of Sharma Brands and an angel investor in Feastables, previously told Insider: "Today, there is a whole new class of 'celebrities' who are digital creators."

Last week, though, MrBeast sued Virtual Dining Partners for making "terrible quality" burgers under his name.

The suit followed a series of negative reviews from customers complaining online about the taste and quality of the burgers.

One Reddit post that was cited in Donaldson's complaint against VDC claimed the MrBeast burger was "raw meat."

One Insider reporter went to the brand's first physical location in New Jersey's American Dream megamall and found the meal to be "shockingly disappointing."

Donaldson said VDC pursued other celebrities to try to replicate the success it had at first with MrBeast, the suit from Beast Investments LLC claims.

This week, VDC fired back with a suit against Donaldson, claiming that he sabotaged his own burger brand.

MrBeast is the biggest individual YouTuber in the world.

Steve Granitz/Getty Images

The suit alleged that Donaldson leveraged his huge online presence to wage a "relentless attack" on the brand after failing to negotiate a more "lucrative deal" with them.

"MrBeast Burger's reputation was materially damaged if not destroyed, customers abandoned the Brand, and Plaintiffs' hard-won relationships with vendors, partners, and suppliers were shattered," the VDC suit claims. "Sadly, Donaldson's conduct has also damaged the bottom lines of hundreds of restaurants across the country and around the world."

Steven Asarch contributed to reporting