Imagine starting a YouTube channel for fun at age 12 and a little over a decade later with only 100 employees, you get offered a billion dollars!
What would have been your reaction? I mean, who doesn’t want a billion dollars of expendable cash? That’s a staggering digit!
This seems to be a chump change for YouTuber, MrBeast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson. Andrew Shultz of Flagrant Podcast made public on September 27th that Jimmy turned down the billion-dollar offer!
During their conversation, MrBeast quickly cut in and said, “I have been offered a pretty crazy one. There are people, not like official term sheets, but people that would be able to afford it, a billion dollars if they could own the channel and the companies and stuff.”
Absurd, right? That’s how big of an entity MrBeast is! And he couldn’t imagine working for his own YouTube channel.“That sounds enticing, but I don’t know if I want to work for my YouTube channel,” he said.
Video Link —MrBeast Turned Down $1 BILLION??
Of course, the empire he and his team have built today is an outcome of years of hard work, which should definitely cost a pretty penny! The 24-year-old YouTuber owns Feastables, his chocolate company; Beast Burgers, his restaurant; MrBeast Merch, his clothing collection; and five (5) YouTube channels.
He is obviously not ready to give up total control of all these. Although he chose not to divulge the interested party’s identity, he asserted their offer’s legitimacy. And in a subsequent statement, he seems not to have taken the offer seriously, saying…
“Not a term sheet,” he repeated, “but people who would. If I took it seriously, they would’ve been like ‘Okay, let’s figure it out.’ I can’t go any further than that.”
This instead suggests he was not satisfied or serious with the $1 Billion offer. Probably if he was serious about it, he would have been in the Billionaire club with the likes of Kylie Jenner, Jay Z, and, Kanye West by now — if he didn’t spend most of it back into his content and being a philanthropist.
As their conversation continued, another Fragrant’s co-host asked whether he had a price in mind if he were to sell his channel and companies.
And he answered…. “It’s so crazy I don’t even want to say it because it’s just where I want to be. If we have a mobile game company, and we got 100 million people playing it, and we have a thousand physical Beast Burgers and Feastables in 20,000 stores, it would probably be like $10 billion, $20 billion.”
Does that mean MrBeast’s channels only are worth more than $1 Billion? That’s the acquisition cost of Instagram, with 13 employees in April 2012! However, he believes that he will be worth much more with some years of smart and hard work.
Is a Billion Dollars a Good Bargain for The Bidder?
Let’s reiterate that Jimmy rakes in a lot of money yearly and gives most of it back to the community. Perhaps he’s still the highest-paid YouTuber! In 2021, Forbes reported his YouTube earnings to be $54 million, having accumulated over 10 billion views.
One of Forbes’s tweets reads, “MrBeast earned the No. 1 spot on this list not only because he’s making more than anyone else, but also because his restaurant concept, MrBeast Burger, is a truly entrepreneurial mechanism for the YouTuber to monetize his fame.”
It seems Jimmy wasn’t satisfied with certain things in the actual article, as he suggested a few edits in response to the tweet.
He said — “Couple edits, I have more than 160 mil followers. Our channels have 200+ mil subs alone. The entrepreneur score seems off, some of my friends with sub-10 employees scored the same as ones with 100+ lol.
“Also can u plz use any other photo of me.”
We shouldn’t be surprised to see him back on that list in 2022, as his subscribers and viewers continue to grow immensely.
Recently, Jimmy celebrated a milestone of 100M subscribers in a grand style — by recreating the squid game.
Guess what? He gave away an Island to one of his subscribers who won his competition and $3,000 to some other participants.
The video was posted on his main channel and titled “I Gave My 100,000,000th Subscriber A Private Island”.
In that video, we watched 100 of his subscribers compete for the keys to the private island in four grueling but fun challenges. And, of course, only a winner was selected.
At the end of the video, he showed his appreciation to his subscribers. He also mentioned that he spent about half a million dollars in the production process of that video. This will likely drive any subsequent offers for his channel pretty high. And if he had taken the $1B offer, the bidder should be in profit in a few years to come!
Could This Be Why He’s Not Yet a Billionaire?
Well, we should not be surprised that giving away his money is in fact the strategy he has devised for himself. It contributes to his channel growth — helping him gain traction, boosting his impression and engagement, and subsequently increasing his subscriber counts.
That’s a pretty smart and profitable investment as a viral video could easily make him more money.
Aside from giving away money to create viral videos, MrBeast donates to charity. He has a YouTube channel — Beast Philanthropy — with about 10.2M subscribers, dedicated to documenting his philanthropic gestures.
The description on this YouTube channel reads, “100% of the profits from my ad revenue, merch sales, and sponsorships will go towards making the world a better place!”
Some of the top videos on his Philanthropy channel are about giving School supplies to the poorest School in America, building houses for homeless families, giving $3M of aid to Ukrainian refugees, helping Hurricane survivors, building wells in Africa, and more.
Apart from his main channel — MrBeast — his other YouTube channels include MrBeast Gaming, Beast Reacts, and MrBeast Shorts.
With all he has, do you think he would have become a billionaire if he didn’t give out so much money? Maybe. Maybe not.
What If He Had Invested In Cryptocurrency?
There are several crypto marketing contents online that indicate MrBeast, at a point, invested in Bitcoin, some Cryptopunk NFTs, as well as other cryptocurrency projects. This probably suggests he made some money from crypto investments before diversifying.
An article published by Cointelegraph in 2021 claims MrBeast invested in Refinable alongside Binance. Refinable is the first NFT marketplace on Binance Smart Chain (BSC) that allows gamers, developers, and collectors to exchange and discover non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
During a conversation with a fellow YouTuber, Logan Paul, MrBeast revealed that he made 2000-3000% ROI (Return On Investment) from his CryptoPunks investment in 2021. He claimed he invested in 8 CryptoPunks NFTs which he had already sold for profits!
Although he didn’t reveal how much exactly they were sold for, he must have made some crazy figures from that sale. Even as of August 2021, the most affordable Punk in the market was worth $100,000.
Speaking of his Bitcoin investment, MrBeast revealed about a year ago that he had put $1.5 million into bitcoin. However, he remained discreet about how much profit was made.
If you ask me, I could tell he has made a lot of money from his crypto investments only. Therefore, not investing in cryptocurrency isn’t why he is not a billionaire yet!
Some Reactions From The Video
While some users seem not to believe his claim, others do as seen in the comment section on YouTube.
Adam Abramson said, “Highly doubt his story. Unless he has proof, I’d take it with a grain of salt. Even with all of the companies he has, they’re never going to be worth a billion dollars…”
Another comment by James H. states, “not throwing shade but MrBeast isn’t worth a billions dollars”
Anthony DiGeronimo is, however, one of those who believes him. He said, “Anybody see Jimmy’s popularity diminishing? No way. He will always have an audience….”
We can’t deny that MrBeast has a lot on his table. But what can you say about the epic turndown? Do you believe his claims? And if you were to be in his shoes, would you have taken the offer?
Think about it!