MrBeast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, was born on 7 May 1998 and runs the most subscribed channel on YouTube, with more than 520 million subscribers. Fortune estimated his net worth at about $2.6 billion in 2026.
James Stephen Donaldson was born on 7 May 1998 in Wichita, Kansas, to Susan Parisher and Charles Donaldson, and was mainly raised in Greenville, North Carolina. His parents worked long hours and served in the military, so he moved often and was frequently cared for by au pairs, and they divorced in 2007. He graduated from Greenville Christian Academy in 2016, where he played baseball as an outfielder until he was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease as a teenager, which led him to stop playing sports. He briefly attended Pitt Community College before dropping out.
He uploaded his first YouTube video in February 2012, at 13, under the name MrBeast6000. His early content included Minecraft and Call of Duty videos, videos estimating other YouTubers’ wealth and advice for aspiring creators. From 2015 to 2018 he gained popularity with his “Worst Intros on YouTube” series, and by mid-2016 he had about 30,000 subscribers. He dropped out of college in late 2016 to pursue YouTube full time, and his mother disapproved and made him leave the family home. He has described a five-year period of being “relentlessly, unhealthily obsessed” with studying the YouTube algorithm.
The turning point came in January 2017, when his video “I Counted to 100,000!” drew tens of thousands of views within days, and his productions became more extravagant. As the audience grew, he brought childhood friends into the business and launched companion channels including MrBeast Gaming and Beast Philanthropy. His videos are fast-paced and built around elaborate challenges and philanthropic efforts, noted for their high production values.
He has built a business empire as the founder of Beast Industries, which holds various media channels and brands, including MrBeast Burger, Feastables and Lunchly, a snack brand meant to compete with Lunchables. He also created the reality competition series Beast Games. He is the third most followed account on TikTok.
His fundraising campaigns have raised large sums. He co-founded Team Trees, a fundraiser for the Arbor Day Foundation that has raised more than $24 million, and Team Seas, which has raised over $30 million for Ocean Conservancy and The Ocean Cleanup. In 2025 he co-founded Team Water, which raised over $40 million for WaterAid.
He won the Creator of the Year award at the Streamy Awards in 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023, and Favorite Male Creator at the Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards in 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025. Time named him one of the world’s 100 most influential people in 2023 and included him in its 2025 Time 100 Creators list, and Forbes ranked him the highest-paid YouTube creator in 2024.
Companion channels include Beast Reacts, which was inactive as of 2026, MrBeast Gaming, MrBeast 2 and Beast Philanthropy. He has described himself as a YouTuber, media personality, businessman, philanthropist and actor, and his main channel is the most subscribed on the platform.
Image: MrBeast at a YouTube event in 2022 (file photo). Photo: Fidias / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)
