There’s no disputing that MrBeast makes a lot of money.
The YouTuber — real name Jimmy Donaldson — rakes in hundreds of millions of dollars from his YouTube channel and Feastables food brand. But despite bringing in revenue between $600 million and $700 million each year, Donaldson says he’s not rich.
His massive channel has 239 million subscribers, and his videos regularly get well over 100 million views.
“Each video does a couple million in ad revenue, a couple million in brand deals,” he told Time Magazine this week, which noted that brands pay between $2.5 million to $3 million for a shout-out in a video.
But that money doesn’t go into his bank account. And even if it did, the 25-year-old said he doesn’t have access to it.
“I don’t have access to any of my bank accounts,” he said. “I have a CFO and everything, but [my mom is] the one who has access to the master bank account.”
Instead, the income goes back into growing his brand and audience.
“I’ve reinvested everything to the point of—you could claim—stupidity, just believing that we would succeed,” he said. “And it’s worked out.”
Part of the investment involves sparing no expense on his massive, popular stunts such as buying a grocery store and paying a contestant $10,000 each day he is able to live in it. A shoot that captures 12,000 of footage may end up as a video that is just 15 minutes long, Time reports.
Of course, Donaldson isn’t exactly scraping by. The creator has a personal chef and a trainer, according to Time, and he lives in a 3,000 square-foot-home that he purchased for $320,000 in 2018, according to the New York Post.
With plans to continue growing his empire, Donaldson admits that he may eventually reap the financial rewards.
“I’m not naïve; maybe one day,” he said of being rich. “But right now, whatever we make, we reinvest.”
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