MrBeast responds to claims he was paid to recruit young people to the military

MrBeast has clarified confusion behind funding he allegedly received from the US military, denying claims that he was paid to promote the military to his primarily young audience.

Jimmy "MrBeast" Donaldson had a rather rocky 2024 despite earning record-high views of 26.45 billion and hosting his very own Amazon Prime TV game show, as the YouTube sensation faced allegations of slave labor, crypto scams, moldy food, and faking videos.

While it seemed like 2025 was off to a similarly controversial start following a report from Rolling Stone that Donaldson was amongst the names that the Pentagon had approved funding for last year, he has weathered the storm with his own clarifications.

The report named MrBeast among other huge names such as Kelly Clarkson and Guy Fieri as those that had been approved for funding by the Pentagon and US Military alongside related news that interest and approval of the military with Generation Z was falling.

Many on social media then jumped the gun and connected the dots to presume that MrBeast was being paid to promote the US Military, considering his overwhelming influence that saw him top the Forbes creator charts and also his predominantly younger audience.

However, Donaldson has rebuffed these allegations on X (formerly Twitter), clarifying exactly what the funding was intended for - even revealing that it was never actually used in the first place.

MrBeast argued, in a reply to AF Post's claim that the funding was used to tackle low Gen-Z recruitment: "That's not true. They were going to help us with some hurricane relief projects but it didn't end up happening. Can I go 1 week without someone making something up about me (sob emoji)."

That’s not true. They were going to help us with some hurricane relief projects but it didn’t end up happening. Can I go 1 week without someone making up something about me 😭

— MrBeast (@MrBeast) January 3, 2025

This is further supported by the original report from Rolling Stone, as a Pentagon official detailed: "We did complete a PAA for the Social Influencer Mr. Beast, but ultimately did not support the production as he did not go to Puerto Rico for the Hurricane relief, so that PAA is cancelled."

Many of MrBeast's videos have been focused on philanthropic actions, with his Team Trees and Team Seas projects being his largest and most successful. He has previously provided meals and assistance to individuals impacted by hurricanes in New Orleans in 2021, but there were no videos produced surrounding the impact of Hurricane Ernesto in Puerto Rico this past year.

Many have come to Donaldson's support in the replies to his post, with one user declaring: "What bothers me the most is it's usually good things you're doing and it ends up being used against you somehow anyway," whereas another argues that "your generosity and authenticity is something people can't understand, so they are going to try and tear you down."

Donaldson will hope that this is the last controversy of the year, but he's not exactly got all of social media on his side due to some rather 'desperate' marketing attempts.