Donaldson grew up in Greenville, North Carolina. He started posting videos on youtube in early 2012 at the age of 13 with the channel name MrBeast6000. He went viral in 2017 after his “counting to 100,000” video earned tens of thousands of views in just a few days and he has become increasingly popular ever since, with most of his videos gaining tens of millions of views. Once his channel took off, Donaldson hired some of his childhood friends to co-run the brand. He has a team of 250 people in 2023. Other than MrBeast, Donaldson runs the YouTube channel Best React, MrBeast Gaming, MrBeast Shorts and the philanthropy channel.He has an estimated net worth of $500 million.

YouTube career

Donaldson uploaded his first YouTube video in February 2012, at the age of 13, under the name of “MrBeast6000”. In 2015 and 2016, Donaldson began to gain popularity with his “Worst intros on YouTube” series poking fun at YouTube videos introductions. By mid-2016, Donaldson had around 30,000 subscribers. In fall 2016, Donaldson dropped out of East Carolina University to pursue a full-time career as a YouTuber. His mother did not approve of this and made him move out of the family home.As his channel grew, Donaldson hired four childhood friends. Chris Tyson, Chandler Hallow, Garrett Ronalds and Jake Franklin- to contribute to his channel. Jake Franklin left the crew in 2020. Afterwards, Karl Jacobs, previously a cameraman, was promoted to take his place.

Rise to fame (2017-2020)

In January 2017, Donaldson published an almost day-long video of himself counting to 100,000, which became his breakthrough viral video. The ordeal took him 40 hours, with some parts sped up to “keep it under 24 hours. Donaldson gained popularity during this period with stunts, such as attempting to break glass using a hundred megaphones, watching paint dry for an hour, attempting to stay underwater for 24 hours, which ended up failing due to health issues. By 2018, Donaldson had given out $1 million through his outstanding stunts, which earned him the title of “YouTube biggest philanthropist”. 

In March 2019, Donaldson organized and filmed a real-life battle royale competition in Los Angeles with a prize of $200,000 (two games were played, making game earning of $100,000 for each game) in collaboration with Apex Legends. 

Donaldson was accused of using counterfeit money in his video titled “I Opened a Free Bank”, published on November 23, 2019. He later explained that he used fake money to avoid participant safety concerns and that participants received real checks after the shoot.

In April 2020, Donaldson created a rock, paper, scissors competition stream that featured 32 influencers and a grand prize of $250000, with at the time became YouTubes most-watched live Original event with 662,000 concurrent viewers.

In November 2021, Donaldson uploaded “456,000 Squid Games in Real life!” a recreation of the survival drama streaming television series Squid Game in real life. The video had 456 people compete for a $456,000 cash prize. The video has more than 501 million views as of September 22, 2023, making it Donaldson’s most-viewed YouTube video that isn’t a short and making it one of the most-watched YouTube video of 2021.

Other ventures

 FInger on the App

  In june 2020, Donaldson, in collaboration with Brooklyn-based art collective MSCHF, released a one-time multiplayer mobile game titled “Finger on the App”. In the game, players touch their phone screen and the last person to remove their finger from the screen wins $25,000. In the end, four people ended up winning $20,000 each after keeping their finger on the app for over 70 hours. The game was reportedly so successful that a sequel titled “Finger on the App 2” was planned to originally launch in December 2020.

MrBeast Burger

Will Hyde, a maker for the MrBeast channel, declared in a November 2020 article with The Wake Weekly that Donaldson would send off a virtual cafe called MrBeast Burger in December 2020. Hyde said his group worked with Virtual Eating Ideas during the advancement of the eatery idea. He said that MrBeast Burger will sell establishment freedoms to serve the burgers to eateries across the U.S. What’s more, clients will actually want to arrange the burgers by means of online conveyance services.

In August 2020, Donaldson declared that he would bring a MrBeast Burger shop to the Pursuit of happiness Shopping center in East Rutherford, New Jersey, close to New York City, to be the area of his most memorable U.S. eatery. The eatery opened on September 4, 2022. 

On June 17,2023, Donaldson communicated wishes to MrBeast Burger because of fears that quality can’t be ensured, saying he laments marking “a terrible arrangement” with Virtual Feasting Ideas, LLC, however said the organization “won’t allow me to stop despite the fact that it’s horrendous for my brand. On July 31, 2023, Donaldson sued Virtual Eating Ideas to end their organization, claiming that the organization harmed his standing by focusing on the extension of the MrBeast Burger brand over food quality. Donaldson likewise guaranteed he got no installment from the partnership. Virtual Feasting Ideas questioned the cases, expressing Donaldson brand, and blamed Donaldson for endeavoring another arrangement for individual addition and depending on “harassing” when rejected. 

Feastables

In January2022, Donaldson declared the formation of another food organization called Feastables, which sent off with its kind of chocolate bars called “MrBeast Bars”. Feastables supposedly made $10million in its initial not many long periods of operation. 

On Walk 3,2023, Donaldson requested that fans on Twitter “tidy up the show” of Feastables shows on store shelves, and recommended that they dark contending items. 

On October 2,2023, Feastables formed an organization with the Charlotte Hornets to remember MrBeast’s badge for their jerseys.