On YouTube there is an account that has more followers than live in the entire European Union. Jimmy Donaldson, who performs as MrBeast, passed the 500 million subscriber mark on 12 June 2026 and became the first individual creator to reach it. “When I was a young kid my family filed for bankruptcy. So the fact that, in my 20's, I'm able to have half a billion subscribers, I'm closing in on 1,000 employees, and have given away hundreds of millions of dollars to people in need. None of it would be possible without YouTube,” Donaldson said during a livestream marking the milestone, according to The Publish Press.
It is an unprecedented number. Eurostat estimated the EU population at 450.4 million as of 1 January 2025. A single person with a camera has a wider audience on one platform than the whole Union has residents.
How he reached this number
MrBeast became the most subscribed individual creator on YouTube in November 2022, when he overtook the Swede Felix Kjellberg, who performs as PewDiePie. Kjellberg had been the most subscribed creator for ten years, according to Billboard. Donaldson became the most subscribed channel overall in June 2024, overtaking the Indian music label T-Series, which had long led among company channels.
Behind the numbers is a single content machine. The signature video “$456,000 Squid Game In Real Life!” is close to one billion views. The #TeamWater charity campaign raised $40 million last year with creators from 115 countries. The livestream for the milestone drew more than 600,000 viewers. Across all platforms, Donaldson has around 720 million accounts.
The European context
No European creator comes close to these numbers. PewDiePie, until recently the largest individual channel from Europe, has stayed far behind his American rival since being overtaken. For a brand planning media in Europe, this changes the frame of reference. Individual reach is now on a scale that once only major broadcasters had.
The company behind the channel
The channel is an asset of the holding company Beast Industries. Last year it raised capital at a valuation of roughly $5 billion, as Bloomberg reported and Fortune relayed. Its media arm, which includes its video channels and the Beast Games show for Prime Video, earned an estimated $250 million in 2024. The holding also brings together the confectionery brand Feastables, the analytics platform ViewStats and the non-profit Beast Philanthropy.
Institutional investors are funding a company built around a single audience. Such an audience base is a distribution channel that another company would have to buy from outside.
AVMSD and creators at broadcaster scale
A creator with broadcaster-level reach is nonetheless not covered by the broadcasting regime in the EU. The revision of the Audiovisual Media Services Directive, Directive (EU) 2018/1808, extended part of its audiovisual rules to video-sharing platforms and social networks. These platforms have obligations on commercial communications and on protecting children from inappropriate advertising, a lighter framework than full television regulation. This audience is therefore growing under a lighter regime than applies to national broadcasters with a fraction of its reach. The concrete impact on individual creators will depend on interpretation and enforcement in each country.
On the livestream, Donaldson said, according to TheWrap, “I shouldn't have half a billion subscribers, like statistically I shouldn't.” Statistically, he is the exception.
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