NUMBERS OF THE BEAST

No YouTuber has ever banked more in a year than MrBeast, a former Boy Scout from Kansas who specializes in elaborate stunts.

With a nom de web like MrBeast, maybe it was inevitable that Jimmy Donaldson would get this big: Just 23, MrBeast earned $54 million in 2021. His YouTube videos accumulated 10 billion views, double the tally from the previous year—which explains why his income more than doubled from $24 million in 2020.

The online masses can’t get enough of his supersized stunts. Over the past year, MrBeast spent 50 hours buried alive, offered $10,000 to a costar willing to sit in a bathtub filled with snakes and hosted his own version of Netflix’s dystopian hit Squid Game. He can be generous: In one clip, the former Boy Scout gave $10,000 to the viewer who had earned the most Scout badges in real life.

In addition to sponsorships from Coinbase and coupon app Honey, MrBeast also pulls in money from licensed merchandise (T-shirts, hats, hoodies). Then there’s his MrBeast Burger app, which debuted last year. He pushes the fast-food mainstays to his nearly 90 million subscribers; local eateries around the country fulfill the orders. So far, he says, he has partnered with 1,700 restaurants and sold 5 million burgers.