YouTube creator and entrepreneur Jimmy Donaldson, known as MrBeast, in 2023. Photo: Steven Khan / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0
Jimmy Donaldson, known online as MrBeast, started posting videos to YouTube in February 2012, when he was 13 years old. By mid-2025 his main channel had become the most-subscribed on the platform, and his name sat on a snack company, a charity and a streaming competition show.
Donaldson was born May 7, 1998, in Wichita, Kansas, and grew up mainly in Greenville, North Carolina, according to Wikipedia. His first uploads ran under the handle MrBeast6000.
Building the audience
The channel crossed 100 million subscribers on July 28, 2022, and 200 million on Oct. 15, 2023. In June 2024 it passed the Indian music label T-Series to become the most-subscribed channel on YouTube. It hit 300 million on July 10, 2024, a first for any YouTuber, and 400 million on June 1, 2025. Guinness World Records recognized him in November 2022 for the most subscribers of any individual male creator.
His videos are known for large-scale challenges and cash giveaways, including a recreation of the Netflix series Squid Game that later inspired one of his biggest projects.
Feastables
Feastables was incorporated on July 8, 2021, and Donaldson announced it in January 2022 with a chocolate line first called MrBeast Bar. Jim Murray, a former president of the snack company Rxbar, serves as chief executive. The product list has since grown to include cookies, gummy candy and chocolate milk. The chocolate is made in Peru by Machu Picchu Foods. In February 2024 the original MrBeast Bar name was retired.
The brand first sold at Walmart and moved into other retailers in May 2023. International rollouts followed in the United Kingdom (July 2023), Australia and New Zealand (September 2023), South Africa (October 2023), Canada (April 2024), Denmark and the Netherlands (May 2024), Germany (September 2024) and India (November 2024).
Donaldson has had other food ventures. MrBeast Burger began as a delivery-only brand in December 2020 and opened a physical restaurant at the American Dream mall in East Rutherford, New Jersey, on Sept. 4, 2022. In September 2024 he unveiled Lunchly, a snack-kit brand developed with KSI and Logan Paul.
Beast Philanthropy
The Beast Philanthropy YouTube channel launched on Sept. 17, 2020. Its stated model is to direct advertising revenue, brand deal income and merchandise proceeds to charitable work. Darren Margolias is the organization’s executive director.
Beast Games
Amazon MGM Studios and Donaldson announced Beast Games in March 2024. The reality competition premiered on Prime Video on Dec. 19, 2024, with 1,000 contestants and a $5 million prize that was billed as the largest single cash prize in reality television. The qualifier round was filmed at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas in July 2024. Later segments were shot at Downsview Park Studios in Toronto and on an island in Panama’s Pearl Islands.
The first season ran for ten weekly episodes through Feb. 13, 2025. Jeffrey Randall Allen won, with Twana Barnett as runner-up; the prize was later doubled to $10 million. Amazon renewed the series for two more seasons on May 12, 2025, and filming for the second season took place in Las Vegas from June to August 2025.
Source: Wikipedia entries on MrBeast, Feastables and Beast Games.
Rachel Lindqvist covers community life, the lakefront, dining and the arts for The Evanston Edge.
