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Mr. Beast would like to have the world think that he is merely a well-intentioned, "unproblematic" creator whose sole mission in this lifetime is to "do good." He has kept up this facade for the last few years as he skyrocketed in popularity among [primarily] children and became by far the most paid creator on Youtube, but what's really going on behind the scenes?
From shady business deals involving Peter Thiel that position him as an accessory to fascism, to reports of misogyny on set, the suspicious nature and problematic actions of Jimmy Donaldson showcase an incredibly telling pattern of behavior that needs to be addressed immediately before he amasses an even greater level of wealth and influence than he already has.
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Let's start with the most pressing but least talked about entanglement: The Now-Terminated Forbes Deal.
The Forbes Sale, Austin Russell, and Peter Thiel
The now-terminated sale of Forbes was under intense scrutiny by the US Government due to national security concerns involving Kremlin-associated Russian oligarch Magomed Musaev. Austin Russell, the face of the deal who received his initial investment from Peter Thiel and received $20 million from Putin-loyalist Musaev for his company Luminar Technologies, has donated to Beast Philanthropy before and publicly brought Jimmy Donaldson into the deal around September 2023 when he announced him as a member of the board.
It is unknown where Jimmy's level of prior knowledge and complicity lies in the matter as it stands today, but we do know that this is not the first time that Mr. Donaldson has exchanged money with Austin Russell.
In 2022, Austin Russell donated somewhere between $4-5 million USD to Mr. Beast's TeamSeas campaign. On the surface, for those that believe in the effectiveness of these kinds of philanthropies, it looks like 2 guys doing something "good" with their money - what's not to like about that?
If we take a closer look at who the beneficiary of this $30 million total donation is we'll see that a lot of that money actually went to a Thiel-Fellow-founded startup called The Ocean Cleanup.
This company is developing what appear to be "trash robots" that supposedly have the power to rid the world of its plastic problem; however, one of their top partners is also Coca-Cola, a company infamous for their plastic pollution contribution that has still gone unaddressed.
"Despite decades of failure to recycle more than a very small percentage of its plastic packaging, the Coca-Cola Company is again trying to sell people on its recycling efforts. Coca-Cola has been declared the worst plastic polluter in the world. It pumps out 200,000 bottles a minute, an equivalent of 3 million tons of plastic packaging a year."
The Ocean Cleanup, like many other companies that Peter Thiel is a benefactor of, appear to merely appease corporate interests, give those same companies a way to show they "support" causes that the people care most about, and put a pretty-looking "revolutionary" bandaid on a much larger issue that could be more effectively remedied in the long-term through policy reform that takes power away from the source of the problem.
Beyond questionable business strategies and his controversial Thiel Fellowship program, Peter Thiel is nearly universally recognized at this point as an extension of the Trump administration and as the most powerful techno-oligarch in Silicon Valley with deep ties to intelligence agencies.
And Mr. Beast said himself that he is a fan of Peter Thiel and his book that he co-authored with Blake Masters.
2022 tweet from Mr. Beast
Thiel was a Trump-loyalist, and he is currently bankrolling his similarly-minded "prodigy" Masters in his campaign for US Congress.
This is certainly not Peter's first time funding what he deems a "young superstar," and Mr. Beast perfectly fits the mold of someone that Peter Thiel would pursue to exploit for his own financial gain and to gain broader influence over a younger generation.
Mr. Beast has also spoken about his desire to one day run for president, and it would be irresponsible to ignore the very obvious facts in front of us:
Mr. Beast has amassed the financial resources and connections to make major political influence possible
Mr Beast aligns with people who defended, and continue to defend, America's hateful descent into fascism for their own selfish benefits
Mr. Beast has kept up a facade of being the "most charitable" creator despite embodying an extremely capitalistic mindset that ignores the root of the problems he supposedly seeks to solve
Mr. Beast yields massive influence over children who will one day be old enough to vote and many young adults that already can
As goofy as it may sound to those that only know that he puts trains in pits, Jimmy Donaldson represents far more than fast-paced children's content and gaming the algorithm on Youtube. He embodies all of the "ideals" of people like Peter Thiel and has been incredibly successful at amassing a massive following that looks to him as a savior and leader in "changing the world". And that is dangerous.
In the opinion of Hot Girls Have Hobbies LLC, Mr. Beast joining the Forbes board and teaming up with Austin Russell was no coincidence, and he is perfectly content with the shady entanglements knowing that this will reward him with more power, money, and connections to those he wrongfully idolizes like Peter Thiel.
But how did little ol' Jimmy get into this position in the first place?
Mr. Beast the Business Boy
Although Jimmy Donaldson started on Youtube in 2012 when he was just 13 years old, he didn't see his first official brand deal until 2017 when Quidd, an NFT Marketplace with a long list of BBB complaints that could be better described as legal gambling heavily promoted to children, sponsored one of this videos. He capitalized on this cash and used it to begin promoting his strategic new "philanthropic" persona that would go on to fuel his future businesses and make him the highest-earning creator on Youtube in 2023.
"Charity-as-spectacle is inextricably built into the MrBeast business model, proving foundational to their success. Part of the MrBeast mythos and appeal is the story that Donaldson took his very first sponsorship deal, for $10,000, and made a video of him giving the money to a homeless man."
Quote from Op-ed by Matthew Wade
Since then, he's amassed a net worth of over half a billion dollars and has amped up his "charitable" productions as a key component of his business model and public image. While there have certainly been ongoing discussions around these stunts and pleas from activists to re-evaluate his approach, Mr. Beast stands scarily firm in his choices and has even started to pre-respond to the critics in cringe-worthy "pick-me" fashion.
A tweet from Mr. Beast after he posted his video entitled "I Built 100 Wells in Africa"
This facade has enabled him to acquire and retain a number of sponsors and sources of funding throughout the last few years. This also includes his own brands like Mr. Beast Burger and Feastables that seem to only exist due to an abundance of wealth and as an attempt to garner more influence, resources, and connections within the "business world."
Past and Present Sponsors of Mr. Beast
Let's take a look at some of the other interesting business dealings and financial partnerships that Mr. Beast was previously or is currently involved in:
Feastables currently partners with Spellbound, a Thiel-fellow-founded startup.
Virtual Dining Concepts is currently suing Mr. Beast.
VDC’s suit alleges that MrBeast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, tried to undermine the brand after VDC denied his attempts to own a bigger piece of it. When VDC refused, it says, he retaliated by publicly criticizing MrBeast Burger, “hijacking” its social media accounts and ultimately taking legal action to have the brand shut down.
Quote from Restaurant Business Online
Mr. Beast has worked closely with PRIME, Logan Paul's brand.
The CEO of PRIME, Logan Paul is currently hitting the majority of the headlines for promoting his hydration drink brand to the fullest. Apart from sponsorship with Aston Villa Women’s Team Forward and Manchester City FC, Paul’s PRIME received significant attention from MrBeast in his latest video. However, recalling Logan Paul’s controversies, MrBeast fans are utterly sad hearing Jimmy’s close friendship with Logan Paul. One Reddit user wrote– ” Is anyone else disappointed with Mr. Beast for sponsoring Logan Paul?“
Quote from EssentiallySports
Mr. Beast's manager, Reed Duchscher, is CEO of Night Media.
In 2022 it was announced that TCG invested $100 million into Duchscher's new venture Night Capital, and an undisclosed amount into Night Media. TCG (The Chernin Group) owns a majority stake in Barstool Sports, and they were also the main financial backers of the now defunct AAF alongside Peter Thiel's Founders Fund.
Feastables is now an official sponsor of the Charlotte Hornets professional basketball team and has a patch on the jersey.
Mr. Beast backed and endorsed Refineable, a cryptocurrency that did a steep nose dive and had fans accusing him of misleading them into a scam.
Mr. Beast offered his young fans a free box of Feastables chocolate bars if they bought a pass for the Creator League in September 2023.
This has since been uncovered to be connected to the NEAR blockchain without being disclosed to participants. Based on Jimmy's history of support for crypto, NFTs, and the space in general, it's hard to believe that he was fully unaware and against the premise like some of the other creators that spoke out after the debacle.
In addition to his Bitcoin holdings, MrBeast has also invested in NFTs, including 8 CryptoPunks after being introduced to the idea by Gary Vaynerchuk "in a group call with 33 other billionaires."
Op-ed on Gary Vaynerchuk from Gripeo.com
MrBeast backed Xcademy’s XCAD Network.
XCAD is a "decentralized finance (DeFi) marketplace and YouTube plugin offering influencers one-click NFT creation and monetization to revolutionize creator monetization with a tokenized economy." It has been described by some as a Ponzi Scheme.
Mr. Beast baited his impressionable fans into signing up for Coinbase, a cryptocurrency exchange where 3 were recently charged in the "first ever cryptocurrency insider trading tipping scheme", for a chance to win $100k in Bitcoin.
And the list could go on and on...
Unfortunately, this is all just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Jimmy Donaldson's lesser known shady business entanglements and investments; however, wealth, especially dirty money, can only get you so far.
Let's back up and take a closer look at Jimmy's presence on the internet and the impact he's had to better understand why the base of his "stardom" is already a shaky foundation waiting to crumble no matter how much money he throws at it.
Exploitative Content - "Poverty Porn"
Jimmy quickly realized the power of "charitable" content - not the power of genuine actions and intentions, but the power of those sweet, sweet views he began amassing at an exponential rate when the world saw him as a savior. Although this made him the golden child for the platform, advertisers, and companies looking to boost their own public image, it also made him the target of criticism due to his perceived lack of empathy for those he portrayed himself "saving" and the stereotypes his videos perpetuate.
Mr. Beast "Curing" Blindness and Deafness
An op-ed by Matthew Wade describes the issue many had with these particular videos:
There’s no denying that the video falls squarely into the problematic territory of “inspiration porn”. Coined by the late Stella Young, the term refers to instances where persons with disabilities are reduced to caricatures, paraded either for their resilience in “overcoming” their differences or as passive subjects waiting for cashed-up abled folk to “cure” them and save the day. By unabashedly embracing this genre, Donaldson’s video proved both surgically precise in knowing what will capture an audience and yet crudely naïve in not anticipating a backlash. Even the thumbnail — the image displayed for each YouTube video when browsing — feels clumsily manipulative, featuring the heroic benefactor MrBeast with his arm around a child who has tears streaming down their face. The child does not appear in the video.
Rhetoric Around Charity Work in Africa
Mr. Beast, whether he intends to or not, perpetuates stereotypes that only exist to enforce a "white savior" mentality and to enable further exploitation of vulnerable populations for the sake of capitalistic interests.
This 2021 paper published in the International Journal of International Relations analyzes how an inaccurate representation of Africa within Western charity print advertisements distorts reality in harmful ways.
Creator The Kavernacle describes in detail the extent to which Mr. Beast pushes this same narrative about his "philanthropic ventures" in Africa to his impressionable audience and how it aligns with a much larger web of nefarious interests.
The comment section of this video speaks for itself:
Out-of-Touch Squid Games
While this particular video is not necessarily a "charity stunt", it similarly lacks any context or nuance and normalizes a problematic narrative among an extremely impressionable audience.
Matthew Wade said the following of the Squid Games video in his op-ed:
His seeming obsession with growth and reach can manifest in a curious lack of reflection. This was perhaps most starkly obvious in a video — which cost $3.5 million to produce and has been watched over 360 million times — in which he recreated the Netflix series Squid Game, with 456 contestants competing for $456,000. Of course, unlike the series, the elimination of contestants did not end with their gruesome deaths. However, also absent was any recognition of the irony of it all, given Squid Game’s blunt commentary on how class disparity enables economically precarious persons to be exploited for the entertainment of the wealthy.
In the "best case scenario" where he is given every benefit of the doubt, Mr. Beast is innocently unaware of the negative implications of his current approach and would be open to changing for the better in order to truly make a lasting difference for those he claims to care about helping; however, he's already proven that he is unreceptive to criticism and is much more concerned with doing things his way no matter what any "hater" says.
Mr. Beast frequently doubles down on his "pure intentions" via Twitter after posting Beast Philanthropy videos
Hmmm....Sam Bankman-Fried also made this same promise...
Faux-lanthropy and Family Ties
Mr. Beast, now personally worth over $500 million primarily as a result of his "charitable persona," more often than not uses his philanthropy as a shield and scapegoat to detract from valid criticism. He also uses it as a guilt-trip for more engagement from well-intentioned, primarily young fans.
The hard sell and moral imperative is clear. Are you not willing to click a single button to help a charitable cause? And will you keep watching, so that MrBeast can help more people? For many young viewers — especially those with little agency in their daily lives and no money to give — the promise of being part of a social movement that benefits others simply by giving their attention holds great appeal. Not only that, but MrBeast will prove to them that philanthropy can be endlessly fun.
Quote from op-ed by Matthew Wade
However, Rhodri Davis for "WhyPhilanthropyMatters" thinks that "a generation of younger people who grow up watching these videos will end up with a very warped view of philanthropy.” She also writes the following in her analysis of Beast Philanthropy:
[Mr. Beast videos] give the impression that philanthropy is all about wealthy lone saviours swooping in and spraying money around to recipients that they have personally chosen; instead of acknowledging that most philanthropy is about the fairly considered distribution of resources through a range of expert non-profits who do their best to ensure that those resources get to the areas of greatest need.
She notes that while Donaldson’s effort “makes for good content, it doesn’t mean that it makes for good philanthropy.”
This sentiment is on full display when we look at the following example of Mr. Beast's actions off-screen as a result of making outlandish content that contradicts the philanthropic persona he's sold to the world.
As detailed by Peter Swanson on Substack in his April 15th, 2023 piece, Mr. Beast left mountains of trash on a remote island in the Bahamas following the filming of his video "I Gave My 100,000,000th Subscriber An Island."
A sailor named Chris Folgate (@SailingMarly) stumbled upon the disaster when he was boating in the area. He says that he attempted to contact Mr. Beast when they matched the island to his video, but neither him nor anyone from his team ever responded.
“I sent MrBeast a few emails with photos of the trash offering to help clean up the mess. I never heard back. Due to weather, we were forced to move the boat north for safety,” Folgate said. “Once the wind shifts and we will turn the boat south and anchor near this beach so we can begin cleaning up this mess. I have heard from several fellow sailors that want to join in the effort.”
Folgate only had 174 subscribers on Youtube when Peter Swanson wrote his article, and it's clear that he had no intentions of stumbling into this mess. It also appears that Mr. Beast wasn't too concerned with the small Youtuber's video and emails, that is, until Peter Swanson posted his article.
The article was amended the next day, April 16th, to reflect that Beast Philanthropy had now offered to take over the clean-up.
"This story was updated on Sunday, April 16 to reflect the fact that the YouTube celebrity’s organization had announced it would takeover the clean-up of Raccoon Cay."
All-around, it's an odd and telling situation that perfectly exemplifies how a wealthy person like Mr. Beast is able to get out of a situation they never should have been in in the first place by using their "charity" as a cover.
Beast Philanthropy says its mission is to "construct and operate food pantries in underserved communities" and to "alleviate homelessness, hunger, and unemployment."
Darren Margolias, who has appeared in some of the Beast Philanthropy videos, is the Executive Director of Beast Philanthropy. Darren is from South Africa and his father worked in real estate in Johannesburg from about 1970 - 1984. This would place him directly at the center of benefitting financially from and contributing directly to the South African apartheid.
Between 1960 and 1980 close to four million Blacks were forcibly relocated, including several hundred thousand from Johannesburg, to remote, desiccated Bantustans (ethnic “homelands”).
This fact in itself is worrisome given the concerns many have already had with Mr. Beast's style of "philanthropy" and the way he portrays his video subjects in places like South Africa.
Furthermore, this connection appears as even less of a simple coincidence when you also consider his seemingly close friendship with Elon Musk (a known beneficiary of South African apartheid), his new romance with a relatively unknown South-African streamer named Thea Booysen (whose family ties are suspiciously secretive and have thus far pointed towards apartheid-involvement), and his apparent admiration for Peter Thiel (another known beneficiary of South African apartheid and Nazi Germany).
Beyond the obvious concern around what ideology may be truly fueling Beast Philanthropy, there is also the question of family ties within the business and how Jimmy may have initially managed to get into such an influential, well-connected position.
The Beast Family Tree
The following information was sourced from Ancestry.com and publicly available obituaries:
Jimmy Donaldson's grandfather spent 23 years in the National Guard and 25 years at Raytheon, which immediately rings alarm bells when Peter Thiel, sweetheart of the CIA, is at play in the present day. Mr. Beast's mother Susan, who says she once served as a prison guard for the US Military in Germany and was first married to alleged-abuser Charles Richard Donaldson (Born in Frankfurt and also of the US Military), is the Chief Compliance Officer at MrBeast Youtube LLC. She also appears on most of the publicly available Beast Philanthropy filings, and her new husband Tracy Parisher is listed as the Operations Manager at MrBeast Youtube LLC.
There is very limited information available about Mr. Beast's apparent father, Charles, besides the fact that Sue has accused him of abuse; however, we do know that his step-father Tracy Parisher is the Operations Manager at MrBeast Youtube LLC alongside Sue.
Given the problems already touched on earlier in regards to Beast Philanthropy's model and actions, it's impossible to ignore his mother's apparent high level on involvement in both his business and within the US Military-Industrial Complex.
At the very least, it certainly explains how he gets the tanks.
But Mr. Beast videos weren't always these huge, fast-paced productions outrunning special agents and destroying Lamborghinis with military equipment, and earlier on in his YouTube journey when it was a more casual setting it's much easier to see who the real Jimmy Donaldson really is behind the facade of "Mr. Beast the Philanthropist".
Racist and Homophobic Comments
Earlier on in his career Mr. Beast was caught using racist and homophobic slurs and rhetoric. It was investigated in 2018 by Taylor Lorenz at The Atlantic and published with the title "YouTube's Biggest Philanthropist Has a History of Homophobic Comments."
He "had a knack for using such terms in his content and often used the word "fag**t" while interacting with fans and haters alike on Twitter."
-The Atlantic, 2018
Elijah Daniel on Twitter, via a now-deleted tweet, also alleged that he even "used the n-word while off-screen."
This is unfortunately unsurprising given Mr. Beast's affection for PewDiePie and the "social hacking" he did to initially attract parts of his audience.
Workplace Toxicity
In 2019, an ex-editor of Mr. Beast shared tweets and screenshots of messages accusing Mr. Beast of calling him "mentally retarded and replaceable" while working there and harboring an extremely toxic work environment.
There was also conversation back in May 2023 surrounding Mr. Beast's apparent "company town" in North Carolina and how it mirrors what large corporations did historically to retain control over their employees.
The New York Post reported this week that Jimmy Donaldson, better known as MrBeast, has been quietly buying up the houses in a cul-de-sac in Greenville, North Carolina, in the area he grew up in. Over the last five years, he purchased his own home, then bought up the rest of the houses that surrounded his. Three of them were not up for sale, and were purchased off-market for almost a million and a half dollars combined. He purchased these homes for his family and employees.
Tessa goes on to explain why this could evolve into a very sticky situation given the power dynamic at play between a boss and their employees. She also highlights another concerning side effect: impacting local housing markets by buying houses in the area above market rate. Obviously Jimmy doesn't care about fronting some extra cash to get the exact houses he wants, but it inadvertently affects the lives of everyone trying to live a normal life in the previously reasonably-priced area.
That wouldn’t be so bad if the houses were actually up for sale, but most of them were not – Donaldson asked his neighbours to sell their homes to him.
-Tessa Kaur, "MrBeast Buying His Employees A Street To Live On Is Bad, Actually"
Mr. Beast responded to these concerns in typical detached fashion by claiming that he was "just helping some people."
Knowingly Advertising to Children
Mr. Beast keeps his empire afloat by pushing products on to his young, impressionable audience. Beyond the questionable brand deals mentioned earlier that had Mr. Beast pushing crypto onto children, Mr. Beast Burger and Feastables appear to be created solely for monetary gain knowing that his primarily young audience would (literally) eat up anything featuring their favorite creator no matter the product.
Advertising to children isn't a new concept, despite the controversial nature, but the way in which Jimmy navigates this space raises a number of red flags.
Research shows that adolescents are indeed heavily and easily swayed by the views of their favorite Youtubers.
"Adolescents sometimes overly identified themselves with the YouTubers, imitated them and implemented the YouTubers’ recommendations without questioning."
Dülgerler, M. N. & Gürsel-Bilgin, G. (2022). The youtube effect on adolescence: exploring the influences of youtubers on adolescents’ identity construction. Eğitimde Kuram ve Uygulama, 18(2), 126-141. https://doi.org/10.17244/eku.1127880
This means that those same creators bear a responsibility to not abuse the power they knowingly have over an impressionable group of people.
Rather than being mindful of this power dynamic for the sake of the children watching, he appears to use this knowledge to his own benefit for financial gain. He also appears to knowingly use the lack of data available to track underage users on Youtube to claim that his audience consists of an older age range than it truly does and disregard the obvious majority share kids between 6-14 years old have.
Clip from TMG Podcast from Jimmy says "Youtube says my audience is 18-25"
Misogyny and Rosanna Pansino's Statements
Now enters our unexpected hero and catalyst of the most recent controversy surrounding Mr. Jimmy Donaldson: Rosanna Pansino.
In October 2023 Rosanna accused Mr. Beast of editing her and a Spanish-speaking Youtuber Quackity out of the top 3 in his Creator Games series. She also stated that Mr. Beast fosters a "boys club" mentality on set and believes that this edit was done intentionally and maliciously, especially considering Logan Paul was given one of the winning spots for optics.
TikTok by author Nicole Slaski (@coolndizabled on TikTok)
While many jumped to defend Jimmy and harass Rosanna about a simple "hide and seek game" they viewed as trivial, the root of the issue is that it's further evidence that Mr. Beast fosters a toxic work environment, a lack of respect for women and POCs, and that he will always make the decision that he thinks will award him the most financial gain and "clout" no matter the negative effects.
Please Stop the Beast
Overall Jimmy Donaldson's philanthropic persona has been the primary catalyst behind his rapid growth and influence, but after examining the full breadth of evidence publicly available it's extremely difficult to view him as anything other than a capitalist-minded businessman with shady ties who will, like Peter Thiel, stop at nothing to get what he wants and amass extreme wealth and influence.
He's not the first person to claim he doesn't care about his wealth and "plans to give it all away," and we see how that panned out. Good luck, Jimmy.
