YouTube sensation MrBeast tried an experiment on X to see how much revenue he could make from ads on the platform. MrBeast ended up making a whopping $250,000 in just six days. However, there’s more to this number than meets the eye.
MrBeast puts X to the test
X (formerly Twitters) allows verified users earn money from ads. According to X, creators can get up to 97% of what they make, but this drops to 90% after hitting $50,000 in total earnings.
MrBeast’s X video pulled in an impressive $263,655 with 156.7 million views and 5.2 million interactions. That’s roughly $1,690 for every million views, which is much less than what creators usually get on YouTube. However, while that is a huge payout, MrBeast isn’t convinced this is a far snapshot at creator earnings on X. MrBeast called the payout “a bit of a facade” in a recent X post. In the post, he suggests that advertisers potentially noticed the buzz around his first X video and bought ads on his video, making his earnings per view higher than usual.
“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,” MrBeast said in a tweet.
Controversy: Did Elon skew the revenue in X’s favor?
MrBeast’s payout didn’t go over well with the creator community, but the backlash wasn’t for MrBeast, but Elon Musk and X. Many creators are claiming that Musk gave MrBeast’s video special treatment to increase his payout. One of the most prevalent claims is that X ran MrBeast’s video as an unlabeled ad.
Others claim that X added to the pool of cash to make payouts seem higher than they actually are for most creators. For example, content creator Lacy, claims he received nearly double the amount of MrBeast’s impressions (30 million impressions compared to MrBeast’s 156K+), yet he received a mere $102.57 payout to MrBeast’s $263,655 payout.
Does MrBeast need X, or does X need MrBeast more?
No matter how you look at this, it’s clear that Elon Musk needs MrBeast, and more creators, to post videos on X. Very early on, Musk revealed his plans to turn Twitter into a platform that could compete with the likes of YouTube. To make this happen, he needs creators to want to post on X, and what makes X look like a great place for creators than high payouts? Though, for the mass majority of creators on X, they say that high payouts are far from the truth.
It’s unclear if MrBeast will continue to post on X, but it seems he’s still weary of X’s payouts. Whether he decides to run more tests on X or not, he’s decided to give away all his X earnings away to 10 followers who share his X post.
So, whether or not it’s simply advertisers buying ad space on a popular video, as MrBeast speculates, it’s clear that Musk and X needs MrBeast more than MrBeast needs them.
