YouTuber MrBeast says he wants to buy TikTok after meeting with a 'bunch of billionaires'

Brian Gordon, The Charlotte Observer on Jan 17, 2025

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Jimmy Donaldson has compiled quite the resume since he began making videos as a teenager in his Greenville, North Carolina, bedroom. The world’s most popular YouTube channel. A successful snack line. A new Amazon reality competition that (despite mixed critical reviews) has been watched more than 50 million times in the past month.

A content empire built on his nickname and brand, MrBeast.

Could owning TikTok be next?

On Monday, the 26-year-old Donaldson wrote on X, “OK fine, I’ll buy Tik Tok so it doesn’t get banned.” It received 37 million views. The following day, he added “Unironically I’ve had so many billionaires reach out to me since I tweeted this, let’s see if we can pull this off.”

Then on Wednesday, MrBeast upped his effort to purchase the imperiled short-form video platform. “We just got out of a meeting with a bunch of billionaires,” he began. “TikTok, we mean business. This is my lawyer right here. We have an offer ready for you. We want to buy the platform. America deserves TikTok. Give me a seat at the table. Let me save this platform.”

The platform is in need of saving in the United States, where approximately 170 million people have TikTok accounts. On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a federal law that will ban the platform on Jan. 19 unless TikTok’s China-based owner ByteDance divests its U.S. operations.

TikTok’s lawyers had told the justices the app would “go dark” on Sunday if the law was upheld.

Passed with bipartisan support, the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act aims to prevent the Chinese government from accessing U.S. user data or manipulating what Americans see through TikTok.

How much to buy TikTok?

The app is a relative newcomer compared to other social media giants like YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. But it’s popularity in recent years, especially among young users and entrepreneurs, has many hoping for a last-minute buyer.

Purchasing TikTok outright would likely cost between $100 billion and $200 billion, Wedbush analyst Dan Ives told The Associated Press. But excluding TikTok’s algorithm, the price tag would be closer to $45 billion, Ives said. (TikTok has claimed it’s not feasible to disentangle the app commercially and technologically.)

As the ban approaches, several prominent names have emerged as potential U.S. buyers. Billionaire investor Frank McCourt has made a bid, partnering with Canadian investor and regular Shark Tank judge Kevin O’Leary. Last year, the Wall Street Journal reported former Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick indicated interest in purchasing TikTok to a ByteDance cofounder.

Online estimates peg Donaldson’s net worth to be between $500 million and $1 billion. But few others have the social media cachet of MrBeast. In June, his YouTube account became the most followed channel on the site, and it now has 344 million subscribers.

Donaldson moved to the Eastern North Carolina city of Greenville as a child, attending private school and playing sports. But the way he tells it, making YouTube videos was his daily obsession. Under the name MrBeast, Donaldson first went viral in 2017 when he sat at his bedroom computer and methodically counted to 100,000 over the course of 40 hours.

His early videos featured unique feats of discomfort and lucrative on-the-street giveaways. As his budgets grew, Donaldson became more ambitious. MrBeast now operates out of a $14 million studio north of downtown Greenville, where he and his crew film larger competitions.

The biggest contest to date, however, was held in Las Vegas. This winter, Amazon Prime Video has been releasing Beast Games, a 10-episode reality series with 1,000 contestants vying for a $5 million grand prize. It reportedly cost $100 million to produce.

The Guardian called the early episodes “one of the most undignified spectacles ever shown on TV,” while The Telegraph similarly called the show a “deafening, joyless cash-dash.”

But audiences appear to be enjoying the spectacle. With 50 million views, it is Amazon’s most streamed unscripted show ever.

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