Some X users see something fishy going on with MrBeast’s sales report.
Jimmy Donaldson, known online as MrBeast, uploaded his first video on X last week. In the post, he said he was curious how much money he could make on X versus his main platform, YouTube.
A few days later, on Monday, Mr. Donaldson concluded the experiment and claimed his video made $250,000. However, in the post announcing the massive revenue generated on X, he said it was somewhat of a facade.
“Advertisers saw the attention it was getting and bought ads on my video (I think) and thus my revenue per view is prob higher than what you’d experience,” he wrote on X.
Many users were suspicious whether the revenue really was higher, especially since X typically pays out much less than YouTube and the video had fewer views on X. Some users accused Elon Musk, who owns X and has been trying to coax popular content creators to post on his platform, of pumping the video’s views.
Popular leftist streamer Vaush mocked how suspicious it seemed.
“Elon didn’t deliberately overpay you just for you to say it’s a facade, cmon man,” he replied to Mr. Donaldson. “You’re supposed to pretend it’s indicative of the platform’s potential even though Twitter’s value has plummeted and not even Elon simps brag about their blue check stipends anymore.”
Other users have accused X management of hiding ad certification on MrBeast’s video. They said the video showed up several times on their feed like an advertisement, with some saying they could interact with the video the same way they could with an ad.
Mr. Musk seemed to preempt the accusations two days before MrBeast’s revenue post, saying, “To the best of my knowledge, we have done nothing to amplify his viewers.”
Since some advertisers left X at the end of 2023, the platform and Mr. Musk have sought ways to generate revenue. One of his plans is to turn the site into a creator-first platform where content makers could generate revenue from their videos. While Mr. Musk has attracted former Fox host Tucker Carlson and CNN’s Don Lemon, he has failed to attract YouTubers.