MrBeast has fired up to 10 employees after an independent investigation into the online content providers’ corporate culture found instances of harassment and misconduct, the company announced Friday.
A company spokesperson declined to say how many people MrBeast had laid off. But the development comes as Jimmy Donaldson, 26, who attracts millions of views under the pseudonym MrBeast with highly produced stunts and giveaways, faces accusations of impropriety that have threatened his family image.
Investigators identified only “several isolated instances of workplace harassment and misconduct,” according to a two-page letter sent Friday by Alex Spiro, a trial lawyer who led the investigation by law firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan and whose clients include Jay-Z and Elon Musk.
No evidence of sexual misconduct
The nearly three-month investigation found no basis for allegations that MrBeast team members engaged in sexual misconduct or “knowingly” employed individuals with “a penchant or history toward lawful conduct.” illegal or doubtful.
Spiro said the team spoke to dozens of current and former employees. Millions of documents from phones, emails and messaging platforms including Discord and Slack were also reviewed, the letter said.
The ccontroversies surrounding the so-called king of YouTube started to snowball this summer. Ava Tyson, Donaldson’s friend and fellow creator accused of sharing inappropriate sexual messages with minors for several years, left the channel in July. A 2017 recording of Donaldson making racist comments and using homophobic slurs was also circulated online by YouTuber Rosanna Pansino.
A preliminary shoot in July for his ambitious Amazon Prime Video show “Beast Games” was quickly hit by safety complaints from some contestants who said they faced “limited sustenance” and “staff medically inadequate” as they competed for a $5 million grand prize.
MrBeast has in turn hired new executives, including a chief personnel officer and general counsel, according to Spiro, and additional employees are receiving “targeted training and executive coaching” for undisclosed policy violations. the company.
The company “has grown extremely quickly, growing from a YouTube start-up made up of a group of talented young individuals to a much larger entity,” Spiro wrote to MrBeast’s board of directors. “It is not uncommon for core policies and practices in a mature business to lag behind business success.”
Donaldson expands his empire
Donaldson has remained largely silent on these issues. He recently launched a brand of pre-packaged meals alongside internet personalities Logan Paul and KSI, marking his latest entry into the food market after his chocolate bar and burger chain received mixed reviews. Her 325 million YouTube subscribers have continued to see their feeds filled with outlandish, high-energy videos, like the recent one titled “100 Identical Twins Fight Over $250,000.”
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Pansino, one of Donaldson’s most vocal critics, responded on X that the findings of “workplace harassment and misconduct” and “multiple firings” meant “maybe it’s time to conduct further investigation.”
Donaldson’s level of fame and growth puts him in “pretty rare company,” said advertising lawyer Robert Freund, whose firm helps creators resolve disputes. He said he suspected the letter was published in an effort to assure stakeholders “that he was running a professional operation”.
“I don’t see anything fishy or suspicious in what has been presented to us here as a public,” Freund told the Associated Press.
contributed to this report.
