MrBeast has inked his name right at the center of history books as one of the few people who attained billionaire status at a younger age.

The YouTuber, 27, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, has also become the only billionaire under 30 who didn't inherit his wealth.

He is the eighth youngest billionaire globally, with an estimated $1 billion [Ksh129 billion] fortune.

Who is MrBeast?

MrBeast was born on May 7, 1998, in Greenville, North Carolina, and started his YouTube journey at 12 under the username "MrBeast6000". He is a graduate of Greenville Christian Academy and emphasized content creation full-time after dropping out of college.

His YouTube channels, comprising MrBeast, Beast Reacts, MrBeast Gaming, and MrBeast Philanthropy, together have more than 415 million subscribers.

MrBeast's main channel has 270 million subscribers, becoming the most-subscribed YouTube channel worldwide.

Rise to fame

His early content included video game commentary, reaction videos, and humorous compilations. He began doing challenges akin to those undertaken by people trying to break Guinness World Records.

His widespread fame came in 2017, thanks to his viral video titled “Counting to 100,000”, which took him 44 hours to accomplish and garnered over 21 million views.

Building on that success, he went on to create other viral stunts, such as counting to 200,000, reading the entire dictionary, and taking on unusual challenges like watching a music video on loop for 10 hours.

He had specialized in what is now called “stunt philanthropy” by 2018. That is creating videos that include attention-grabbing challenges with giving away huge cash rewards to random followers.

One early popular video showed him giving $1,000 to strangers. In the following videos, the amounts escalated dramatically, eventually reaching hundreds of thousands, and even millions of dollars.

In December 2019, he organized a challenge where participants had to keep their hand on a $1 million pile of cash, and the last person to take their hand off won the money.

MrBeast is known for putting nearly all of his video earnings back into producing new content.

In November 2023, MrBeast jetted into Kenya quietly and drilled 52 boreholes, which are wells designed to access groundwater, in various parts of Kenya, including Meru County. In general, he has built 100 wells across Africa as part of a larger project to provide clean water to communities in Africa.

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Again in April this year, YouTube was in Kenya where he launched a school feeding program in Narok. He partnered with Oloirien Primary School and provided a feeding program, along with other infrastructure improvements like a new kitchen and farming materials, according to multiple sources.

In 2023, Time magazine included MrBeast in its list of the 100 most influential people in the world. The next year, he claimed the top spot on Forbes' list as the highest-earning YouTube creator of 2024, with an estimated net worth of $1 billion.

Among the 16 billionaires worldwide under the age of 30 at that time, MrBeast stood out as the only one to have built his fortune entirely on his own, without any inherited wealth.