Jimmy Donaldson, best known as MrBeast on YouTube, is running his growing media business like Elon Musk is running his tech empire—by living as close to work as possible and modestly. The superstar creator, with more than 246 million subscribers on YouTube, was a guest on the latest episode of the “Howie Mandel Does Stuff” podcast last week. At the end of the episode, he showed the host, the comedian Howie Mandel, around his production facility in Greenville, N.C., which contains a studio apartment where he lives and also uses as a home office.
The zero-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment features a mini fridge and a kitchenette at the entrance. A small white sectional sofa occupies the center of the room, placed across a TV mounted on the wall. Next to the sofa is a desk-computer setup where Donaldson works. A narrow, long black table and two chairs are placed against the soft. A bed is tightly fit in a corner, separated from the rest of the space by a black curtain.
Donaldson said he lives there mostly when he’s by himself. “Sometimes when my girlfriend’s in town, I’ll go to a house. But, it’s much easier to stay here because I don’t have to drive a lot,” he told Mandel. He added that he’s hosted Tom Brady, Justin Timberlake and many other celebrities in that apartment.
The YouTuber decorates his walls with several framed posters of the late Apple founder Steve Jobs, including a Rolling Stone cover of Jobs in October 2011, printed after he passed away that month. One of the Jobs posters says, “If you want to make everyone happy, don’t be a leader. Sell ice cream.” Donaldson said that is one of his favorite Jobs quotes. Another says, “I want to put a ding in the universe.”
MrBeast’s YouTube videos and other businesses rake in about $700 million a year, he recently told Time magazine. The creator is estimated to be worth $500 million. But he said virtually all of his earnings are put back into producing content and growing his business.
Donaldson’s humble dwelling calls to mind Elon Musk’s famous $50,000 tiny house in Boca Chica, Texas, where SpaceX’s development facility is located. The entrepreneur who runs multiple companies has a habit of living close to where his work is. In late 2022, Musk reportedly slept in the office of Twitter, now X, in San Francisco during the first few weeks of his takeover of the social media company. In the past, he said he’d sometimes sleep on the floor of Tesla factories when there was a production crunch.