MrBeast, one of the most popular YouTube stars, posted an old video to X and earned more than $250,000 from the platform’s new ad revenue sharing program.
MrBeast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, is a YouTube sensation with over 100 million subscribers. He is known for his extravagant stunts, philanthropic acts, and viral challenges. Some of his videos include giving away millions of dollars, buying an island, planting 20 million trees, and opening free restaurants.
Last week, MrBeast decided to test X’s new ad revenue sharing program by posting one of his old videos, about trying out various expensive cars, to the platform. X, owned by Elon Musk, is a social media platform that allows users to share short videos and photos. In July 2023, Musk launched a program to share part of the revenue from ads displayed in the replies to high performing content with the creators who post it, so long as they subscribe to the platform’s premium service.
How much did he make and how did he spend it?
On Monday, MrBeast announced on X that he had made more than $250,000 from his video, which had more than 160 million views. He also shared a screenshot of X’s creator payment screen, showing the post had earned $263,655. This is a remarkable amount, considering that X’s ad business is much smaller than its rivals, such as Meta, YouTube, and TikTok, which all have systems to pay creators for the traffic and ad revenue they help to generate.
MrBeast said that he planned to give away the money he earned to “10 random people that repost this and follow me” on X. He is known for his generosity and has donated millions of dollars to various causes, such as hunger relief, environmental protection, and education. He also runs several businesses, such as a burger chain, a mobile game, and a merchandise line.
What does this mean for X and other creators?
MrBeast’s experiment shows that creators can earn significant cash on X’s nascent program, even though the platform is still struggling to revive its core ad business. It also puts X more in line with other social media companies, which have been investing in attracting and rewarding creators for their content. Musk said that the program aimed to encourage more creators to post high quality content to X that would be appealing to advertisers.
However, MrBeast also cautioned that other creators might not have the same experience. He said that his revenue per view was probably higher than what others would experience, because advertisers saw the attention his video was getting and bought ads on it. He also said that he did not plan to regularly post his work to X, because his videos cost millions to make and X would not fund a fraction of it.
Therefore, it remains to be seen whether X can sustain and scale its ad revenue sharing program, and whether it can compete with other platforms for the attention and loyalty of creators and users.