MrBeast explains why he has ‘less than one million dollars in the bank’
YouTuber MrBeast has revealed he has less than a million dollars in his bank account.
The social media sensation, who is known for his elaborate challenges where cash prizes are regularly worth $1m (and sometimes a lot more), explained the reasons behind his relatively low balance in a new interview with Steven Bartlett on the Diary of a CEO podcast.
Boasting over 364 million followers, he is the most-subscribed YouTuber in the world.
“Are you a billionaire?” Bartlett asked the 26-year-old, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson.
“On paper, yeah,” he responded. “But I mean in my actual bank account, I have less than a million dollars.”
Explaining the reasoning behind the lower sum than expected, he told Bartlett that he reinvests a lot of his income back into his brand, paying himself only the costs he needs to live off every month.
Asked if he pays himself, Donaldson responded: “A little bit but I have some assistants and things like that so I try to pay myself what I spend personally a month just to stay even.”
He added: “Money is fuel to grow a business.”
The social media star also gave his first public confirmation that he spent $100m on his popular Amazon series Beast Games, with a personal investment of $50m. He admitted losing “tens of millions” on the project.
“We lost a ton of money making that show, and that came out of my pocket,” he said. “We spent way too much money on it. I lost tens of millions on that show. I’m an idiot.”
He said the project was a “poor financial decision” despite it becoming Prime Video's most watched unscripted series ever, getting 50 million viewers over the course of 25 days.
Asked how much the show cost to make, he said: “I’ve been advised not to say," adding “Money isn’t everything, building and managing everything is infinitely harder.”
He added: “It was not a good financial decision to make Beast Games. I would have more money if I didn’t film it.”
Asked if he had any regrets, he said: “No. For me it was about making the first season as good as possible. I can’t let the YouTube community down. Creators don’t have a good rep when it comes to streaming.”
Donaldson revealed that his monthly viewership averages 200 million across his channels, adding: "Sometimes three plus per cent of humans alive are watching my videos".
He added: "It's way easier to get 50 million views on one video than a million views on 50 videos".
