MrBeast is Jimmy Donaldson, a American creator and entrepreneur who built the most-subscribed individual channel on YouTube and then turned that audience into a media and consumer-products business. His videos are built around large, clearly stated challenges and prizes, and his nonprofit work has become a second pillar of his public identity. YouTube’s official blog dated his most recent rank milestone to June 12, 2026, when he became the first individual creator to reach 500 million subscribers. That date is the reliable anchor for any claim about his size, because subscriber totals change daily.
Who he is
Jimmy Donaldson uses the on-screen name MrBeast. The official MrBeast store states that his first video was posted in 2011 and describes his early years as a cycle of repeated experiments with money reinvested into bigger productions. Beyond that starting point, a year-by-year account of his early career is not documented in the sources available for this profile, so this article does not reconstruct one.
How the channel rank was reached
The clearest way to describe his position is through YouTube’s own milestone dates, which are more precise than the rough “biggest” label.
| Date | Milestone | Source |
|---|---|---|
| November 2022 | Became YouTube’s most-subscribed individual creator | YouTube Official Blog |
| June 2024 | Became YouTube’s most-subscribed channel overall | YouTube Official Blog |
| June 12, 2026 | Became the first individual creator to reach 500 million subscribers | YouTube Official Blog |
Read the table as a sequence of dated facts, not as a current scoreboard. Any later subscriber count should be checked against the live channel page and dated when quoted. The Guardian’s 2025 profile used an earlier count and should not be used for current rank.
#1 Best Overall
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What the videos are
MrBeast’s format is built on challenges with simple rules and visible stakes: a large prize, a difficult task, and a clear winner or outcome. The production scale has grown over time. The Guardian’s June 2025 profile describes increasingly elaborate and expensive videos built around spectacle and large numbers of participants.
YouTube singles out “$456,000 Squid Game In Real Life!” as a defining video for the channel and notes that it was approaching one billion views when its June 2026 milestone post was written. The same post cites a creator event, “50 YouTubers Fight for $1,000,000,” and an April 2026 livestream sequel. These are useful examples of the format at scale, though the sources do not establish that any single technique caused subscriber growth.
Philanthropy
Campaign fundraising reported by YouTube
YouTube’s 2026 retrospective report on creator-led campaigns gives the following fundraising figures. They are campaign totals as reported by YouTube, not independently audited statements.
Rank #2
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| Campaign | Reported result | Source and year |
|---|---|---|
| #TeamTrees | More than $25 million raised to plant more than 25 million trees | YouTube, 2026 retrospective |
| #TeamSeas | More than $30 million raised to remove trash from beaches, rivers and the ocean | YouTube, 2026 retrospective |
| #TeamWater | $40 million raised for WaterAid, with creators from 115 countries participating (2025 campaign) | YouTube, 2026 retrospective |
Beast Philanthropy
Beast Philanthropy is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit founded by Jimmy Donaldson. By its own description, it focuses on community-based projects and judges proposals by three tests: scale of impact, verifiability, and demonstrable results. Active projects are run with milestones and partner oversight. Completed projects are meant to be documented with published results and proof-of-life photography. Those are the organization’s stated standards; outside evaluations of individual projects are not described in the sources reviewed here.
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The organization’s website also reports audience figures of 1.6 billion unique reach over a rolling 90-day period and more than 6 billion average monthly views. These are self-published metrics. The page did not state the exact access date, so readers should treat them as the organization’s own time-limited claims rather than audited audience data.
In November 2025, the Associated Press reported a strategic partnership between Beast Philanthropy and the Rockefeller Foundation. AP said the partners were still working out the specific issues at the time of publication. Donaldson told AP: “I’ve spent my entire life making YouTube videos. They’ve spent their entire lives helping people.” Rockefeller Foundation president Dr. Rajiv Shah said the philanthropic sector had failed to capture “the hearts and minds of hundreds of millions of young people.”
Rank #3
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The business beyond the channel
The official MrBeast store presents the channel as the starting point for a wider business and identifies MrBeast Lab as the toys and collectibles line. Forbes describes Beast Industries’ activity across several areas: media, the Feastables and Lunchly food brands, the Viewstats analytics tool, and licensing for toys and clothing. These descriptions show the scope of the expansion, not the profitability of each business.
Forbes reported a $5 billion valuation associated with venture investment in the company. That figure is a reported investment valuation. It is not a confirmed cash balance, an audited company value, or a measure of Donaldson’s personal net worth.
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1Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors2Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches3Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsGoogle has also announced a multi-year partnership with Beast Industries covering Gemini and Google Health. The announcement described a planned MrBeast video using Gemini in extreme environments and a planned Fitbit Air integration. It is a corporate partnership announcement, and the sources reviewed here do not describe any affiliate or referral program.
Rank #4
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- Official apparel for Beast Games Season 2, showcasing the Strong Smart logo.
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Beast Games and streaming
The Guardian’s 2025 profile describes Beast Games as a reality competition series on Amazon Prime Video. It reported that the first season featured 1,000 contestants competing for a $5 million prize and that the production cost was $100 million. Those season-one details come from 2025 coverage and are not current specifications. Forbes’ later profile refers to subsequent-season activity, but the sources reviewed do not confirm current regional availability on any platform.
What is and is not established
- Established: Jimmy Donaldson is MrBeast; YouTube dated his three subscriber milestones; his videos are challenge-based with large prizes and production scale.
- Established as organizational claims: Beast Philanthropy’s standards and its audience metrics; YouTube’s campaign totals.
- Reported but not audited: the $5 billion valuation, the Beast Games production cost, and the season-one contestant and prize figures.
- Not established: a current live subscriber count, current regional availability of Beast Games, or the outcome of the Rockefeller Foundation partnership beyond its November 2025 announcement.
For readers who want to follow the story further, the most reliable starting points are YouTube’s official blog for channel milestones, the Associated Press for the Rockefeller partnership, and the Guardian and Forbes for business and production coverage, each read with its publication date in mind.
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