I recently returned to information about how much money MrBeast has, and honestly, the numbers are impressive. The guy has been leading the list of the highest-paid YouTubers on the planet for two years in a row, and it’s not just like that.

His financial success began with videos—in 2021, Donaldson earned about $54 million just from content. Forbes predicted that the figure could rise to $110 million the following year. The blogger’s total net worth is estimated at around $500 million. But here’s what’s interesting: in 2022, he was actively looking for investors for his content studio, and if the deal had gone through, the value of his main asset would have reached one and a half billion.

Donaldson himself says that money is a byproduct. His approach is simple: “The odds of becoming a billionaire increase if you don’t set that as a goal. You just need to focus on making your company awesome.” The guy is so successful that he has even come to give lectures at Harvard Business School.

So how does he build his empire? Let’s start with the content studio. MrBeast doesn’t limit himself to one channel—he has a whole network of projects. MrBeast’s main channel has 142 million subscribers, Beast Gaming has 32 million, then come Beast Reacts (22.5 million), MrBeast Shorts (21.5 million), MrBeast 2 (21.5 million), and Beast Philanthropy (12.6 million). All of this is produced in Greenville, where the blogger himself grew up. His studio is located there, and they’re currently expanding it into three major centers. Donaldson plans for the place to attract other content creators, who will move their studios there. At the moment, about 50 people work on his team—scriptwriters, editors, assistants. Many of them are his friends and relatives, who have been with him since the very first days of the channel.

But content is only the beginning. In late 2020, Donaldson announced the launch of his own fast-food chain. He rented a snack bar in Greenville and opened a location with free food. The menu includes burgers, fries, desserts, and drinks. On opening day, the line of cars stretched for more than 30 km. Today, MrBeast Burger operates in a virtual-restaurant format—you order through an app, and the food is prepared at one of the partner offline cafés. Thanks to this model, the network quickly grew to 300+ locations in the US and several abroad. In the three months after launch, they sold more than one million burgers. In August 2022, they opened the first full-fledged offline restaurant.

At the same time, Donaldson launched a line of snacks called Feastables—MrBeast Bar chocolate and MrBeast Cookies. They’re sold online and at Walmart. The January 2022 launch was accompanied by a giveaway with cash prizes and a contest with golden tickets hidden inside the chocolates. The finalists prepared desserts judged by Gordon Ramsay, and the winner received a chocolate factory. In the first few months, Feastables earned more than $10 million.

That’s what his financial success looks like from the inside—not just videos, but a whole ecosystem of content, food, and products. The guy understood that he needed to expand beyond a single platform, and it worked.