MrBeast Fires Raft of Employees

Online video production company MrBeast has fired a number employees, it announced on Friday.

The dismissals followed a three month-long investigation into sexual misconduct and inappropriate workplace conduct.

MrBeast is the world’s most subscribed to YouTube channel and is known for its elaborate stunts. It is run by 26-year-old Jimmy Donaldson, who goes by the moniker “MrBeast” in his videos and who uses the same name for his production company. MrBeast also runs Beast Philanthropy.

The probe, which was conducted by a firm hired by MrBeast LLC, found no evidence that MrBeast “knowingly” employed people with “proclivities or histories towards illegal or questionable legal conduct.”

Donaldson shared a letter to his X (formerly Twitter) account on Friday, written to his board of directors by trial lawyer Alex Spiro. In the post Donaldson said: “The lawfirm/investigators reviewed millions of documents/messages and conducted 39 interviews.”

Spiro, a lawyer for Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, said in the letter that he found: “several isolated instances of workplace harassment and misconduct.”

He suggested that the company should be “swiftly terminating individuals who violated company policy regardless of their position or level within the company.”

A company spokesman declined to be precise on the number of firings, only saying that the figure was between 5 and 10.

MrBeast LLC has been contacted via email outside of work hours for comment.

The company has recently been rocked by controversy after former MrBeast collaborator Ava Kris Tyson was accused of sharing sexual messages with minors and a 2017 video of Donaldson making racist comments and using homophobic language was shared online by YouTuber Rosanna Pansino.

However, the investigation found the claims against Tyson were “without basis.”

Per BBC reporting on Tyson, at the time of the initial allegations she was apologetic for her “past actions” but said that she never groomed anyone, only made “bad edgy jokes.”

The person who has been named as her victim was also quoted by the BBC saying: “It was incredibly difficult having my name thrown around in a public forum without being given the opportunity to share the truth.

“I was not groomed. These were false allegations made up by other people with my name thrown in them.”

MrBeast LLC has also suffered a setback in its new Amazon Prime venture, “Beast Games,” as contestants are suing the company for “unsafe” employment conditions. They say that as they were making the company money by competing, they should be treated as employees and that their “work on the show was the entertainment product.”

They also allege that the production team failed to provide overtime pay, that they were not given uninterrupted meal breaks or rest time, and that they were not paid a minimum wage.

A spokesperson for MrBeast previously told The Associated Press in an email that he had no comment on the lawsuit.

Spiro said that the instances of isolated harassment as found in his probe were likely a result of the fact that MrBeast has grown rapidly from being a YouTube page to being a full-blown production company.

He said in his letter to the board of directors: “It is not uncommon that policies and practices essential in a mature company would lag behind commercial success.”

Spiro is a well known figure in and of himself. He represented former NFL player Aaron Hernandez during his double homicide trial in 2017 and assisted Jay-Z’s company Roc Nation in getting rapper 21 Savage out of prison following his ICE detention in 2019. He is currently representing New York City Mayor Eric Adams on his five federal charges, including bribery and wire fraud.

This article includes reporting from The Associated Press.

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