MrBeast claims to have "never made a penny off" Beast Burgers amid criticism for using philanthropy as content

YouTube star MrBeast has recently claimed that he hasn't made a single penny from his successful Beast Burger chain. The claim comes as a tweet sent to a critic under his latest video about him giving away shoes to underprivileged kids in Africa via his philanthropic channels.

The most recent video, called "Giving 20,000 Shoes To Kids In Africa," uploaded to the Beast Philanthropy channel yesterday, has ruffled some feathers on Twitter.

MrBeast, however, has spoken out against people claiming that he profits from other people's misery and announced that he didn't make money from his successful Beast Burger chain. Instead, he spoke about using the money to invest in ads to keep restaurants afloat during the pandemic:

The full tweet reads:

"I started Beast Burger during Covid because restaurants were struggling and I wanted to give them a way to earn extra money. Countless restaurants were close to going under and the extra revenue generated off selling Beast Burgers helped them stay afloat until after lockedown [sic]. I’ve also never made a penny off it, we just reinvest the revenue into ads to help restaurants make more money."

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MrBeast drama explored: Ludwig Ahgren defends fellow YouTuber from criticism for recent video about donating 20K shoes to poor kids in Africa

While most people, especially his fans, have lauded the YouTuber for his philanthropic endeavors, many have been raising questions about the ethics behind making content out of donating life-altering things to the underprivileged. The controversy began in January as people started criticizing the YouTuber for a video titled 1,000 Blind People See For The First Time.

All the trolling aside, people such as HasanAbi and other progressive commentators on the internet have pointed out how MrBeast's videos about giving people eye surgeries and other types of donations fill them with rage.

Not because they necessarily hate what the YouTuber does, but because the act of donating large sums of money to the poor in a bid to make content out of uplifting lives points to a larger problem in society that remains unaddressed.

Of course, there is another side too:

It should be noted that the 20K shoe video has been uploaded to the Beast Philanthropy YouTube channel. Which, according to MrBeast, is run by his charity. Hence, all the revenue will be going towards several philanthropic causes:

"Beast Philanthropy is a charity we run and all the revenue from these videos goes towards running our food pantries and helping people around the world. Our charity owns this channel, I thought it’d be fun to use my fame to create a loop of helping. Film good deed, inspire millions of kids to do good, use revenue from good deed to do next good deed"

Naturally, among the many who have commented on the issue include big names such as Ludwig Ahgren. The popular YouTube streamer took to his alternate channel Mogul Mail to talk about the drama surrounding MrBeast.

After reading through the various tweets discussed above, Ludwig succinctly sums up the problems some might have with philanthropic videos by pointing to wealth inequality in the world and the USA. He elaborated:

"At its core, they[the videos] are good. They are a whole good. But they are only able to exist because live in a system in America where a thousand people need cataract surgery and don't have access to it... it would literally cost hundreds of dollars to do it. But it requires one guy named MrBeast, who's 24 years old from North Carolina, to just get up and do it."

Timestamp 5:40

A clip of Ludwig defending the Content Creator of the Year has been doing the rounds on social media, where he says:

"It's not MrBeast's fault, it's not something that he created. He is a part of the machine. He is not gonna fix capitalism, he's gonna operate within it. And that's fine that he does that. You don't have to love him for doing charity works, you don't have to love him for being philanthropic. But to hate him for it seems a little backwards."

MrBeast's philanthropic content has become a brand for the 24-year-old YouTube star, who is currently the most subscribed-to creator on the platform after beating out PewDiePie last year. It is safe to assume that the recent criticism will probably not make him stop doing charity work, so fans can expect to see him fundraise for more causes in the near future.