🆕 Never Post! Should You Trust MrBeast With Your Money?

Business and finance journalist Kit Pulliam examines MrBeast Financial, a soon-to-be-launched financial services platform spearheaded by MrBeast — A.K.A Jimmy Donaldson — himself. But what does it mean for this one, rich (is he rich?) YouTuber to own a bank (is it a bank?)? And how did he get to this position? 

–

Find Kit Pulliam

• Business Insider

Find Alexandria Degree

• AskDegree

–

• Call us at 651 615 5007 to leave a voicemail
• Drop us a voice memo via airtable
• Or email us at theneverpost at gmail dot com

–

Never Post’s producers are Audrey Evans, Georgia Hampton and The Mysterious Dr. Firstname Lastname. Our senior producer is Hans Buetow. Our executive producer is Jason Oberholtzer. The show’s host is Mike Rugnetta.

–

Never Post is a production of Charts & Leisure and is distributed by Radiotopia

Friends, hello, and welcome to Never Post, a podcast for and about the Internet. I am your senior producer Hans Beutow, and we have an investment worthy show for you this week. Our host, you are probably noticing, Mike Ragnetta, he is away again this week, but the mice are definitely out to play because this episode this episode is all about squirreling things away. And yes. Okay.

I realize now that I've said it out loud that those are two different animals, squirrels, mice. Yes. But you have to realize that right now in the background, in the corner of my screen, as I read this, our EP Jason is sending me all caps angry Slack messages about how I need to do a really good job with this intro and how I better really sell this one as one of our best ever episodes. And so I'm just I'm I'm really on edge right now, and I'm distracted. And so two different mammals that get mixed up and metaphors have now gotten away from me, and the train has sailed now, and I'm just talking.

Jason says that I need to say this is an incredible episode. Okay. Yes. It is. But I legally can't tell you it's the best ever episode anyone has ever made because there are, and I'm gonna read this from this Slack I just got, quote, ethics and shit that we need to make people believe we are paying attention to.

I don't know how to make Jason happy, but I I do know that I could use some help, and this episode can maybe be that help. So my 18 year old nephew just started his first job. He's working in a minor league baseball stadium. That's super cool, and we're really really proud of him for this. But you know how first jobs are at that age.

You get that sweet sweet first paycheck, and suddenly in your hot little hands, you're holding more money than you've ever had, and you're like, woah. But your parents are like, you gotta start saving. And so you're like, yeah, okay. I gotta start saving. You know that, but you don't know how.

And so you start to look around at who you know because you don't know anything about finance. And you look in your world and you're like who's good with money? And you see that the biggest YouTuber in the world, mister beast, is starting to offer a new financial platform, a fintech. He's starting this new business where you can invest or you can save money or whatever it is you can put your money, and mister beast's whole thing is about having literal stacks of money and, like, giving them away in increasingly bombastic and clickbaity ways. So, yeah, maybe mister beast financial makes sense for me.

So I don't think my nephew is mister beastie. I don't think that's his scene. But I am over here as an adult in his life, seeing him in this moment of looking at finances for the first time. And then in parallel, mister Beast launching this fintech, and it was the perfect time for us to get a pitch from business and finance journalist Kit Pulliam, who was willing to take the time to look into Mr. Beast Financial.

Kit is a reporter who really helped me with this piece understand how if my nephew were to come to me with a grand plan of opening an account, how to think about and talk with him about what actually is a fintech and what is a fintech if it's owned by Beast Industries and what can people, especially kids, expect when they look to give Jimmy Donaldson all their money. So after a short break, Kit Pulliam on MrBeast Financial and what they think that might look like when it launches.

Okay. Get ready because I'm about to jump scare you with mister beast.

I wanted to open a free bank, so I did what any logical person does. I rented a real bank, grabbed a ton of money, hired all my friends as tellers, and then bought a billboard and paid Chandler to flip a sign. And here's what happened.

In 2019, the mister beast YouTube channel uploaded this video called, I opened a free bank. Like you might expect from the title, mister beast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, didn't offer any of the services banks generally do. Instead of storing or loaning money, Donaldson and his friends gave money away to everyone who entered.

How are you doing? I gave a six year old a thousand dollars. Okay. I'll let more in. Alright.

Chandler

Obviously, this wasn't a real business. Donaldson and his friends were away all the money they started with, at least $100,000.

We broke the bank. That bank said I don't have any money. Don't cry. Lost money. We're done.

Six years later, on 12/03/2025, Jimmy Donaldson formally announced he will actually be launching a financial services platform called MrBeast Financial. Other influencers and celebrities, including Charlie D'Amelio, ASAP Rocky, and Kim Kardashian, have invested in or partnered with companies in this heavily regulated industry. But he'll be the first to actually own one. A lot has changed in the six years between his 2019 video and now. In that time, Donaldson partnered with or started several new business ventures, including ghost kitchens, chocolate bars, and Lunchables, and grew Beast Industries to be worth billions of dollars.

But how did he get to this point? What does it mean for Jimmy mister Beast to own a bank? Will his content have to change to avoid regulatory trouble? And is there anything in Donaldson's background that would cement him as a trustworthy financial services owner? To find out, we have to go back to 2017.

That's when 19 year old Jimmy Donaldson got his very first brand deal from a collectibles app called Quidd, which later pivoted to NFTs before shutting down in 2025. But in 2017, instead of keeping the $10,000 Quidd gave him for the sponsorship, he used it to make his very first in a long line of philanthropy videos. The video titled giving a random homeless man $10,000 is a lot less polished than his current work. Donaldson is deeply awkward through the whole process, over explaining the concept of a sponsor and struggling to say that, yes, he is actually giving $10,000 to a man who thinks he's being pranked on camera.

And just so we are all on the same page, this is not my money. This is a new weekly series where I'm getting companies to sponsor my videos and I'm giving 100% of what they pay me away to random people. For example, this video is sponsored by Quidd. I'm doing a brand deal for Quidd and they paid me $10,000 and I'm taking that $10,000 and giving it to this homeless man. So before I show me giving the homeless man $10,000, I need to mention Quidd because they were so generous enough to sponsor this video and allow this to happen.

Quidd is a new app.

But this video set trends that Donaldson continues throughout his YouTube career. Although the video is significantly more subdued than what we've come to expect from him, there's still some of his trademark hyperbole. For example, he shows text calling Quidd the best app ever as part of his ad read. And up to today, Donaldson still says he invests most of the money he makes back into his YouTube channel. That's how he's able to make so many big splashy videos, giving away hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Recently, he even said he had to borrow money from his mom to pay for his upcoming wedding because he keeps very little of what he makes.

It's funny talking about my personal finances cause no one ever believes anything I say. So, I mean, because they're like, you're a billionaire. I'm like, net worth. I don't I have negative money right now. I'm borrowing money.

That's how little money I have. Technically, everyone watching this video has more money than me.

So while this 2017 video is his first brand deal, Donaldson's first major brush with financial services comes later in April 2021. The mister beast channel had truly made it by then. The channel was just about to pass 60,000,000 subscribers. That's when he partnered with the financial technology company Current for a giveaway. 100,000 fans who signed up for the fintech platform would be awarded $100,000.

That's a whole $1 per sign up. Not exactly worth divulging your sensitive financial info. However, months later, if fans connected their direct deposit to Current, they could also get an exclusive MrBeast hoodie for the trouble. You might be thinking, so what? YouTubers get sponsorships all the time.

But this wasn't just a sponsorship relationship. Donaldson actually invested in Current, which he didn't mention sponsorship read. What he did say in that read is that Current is better than the bank you're with. Both of these things can get him into regulatory trouble.

He has to disclose if he's his relationship to really any financial product.

That's Alexandria Degree, CEO and virtual chief compliance officer of Ask Degree. I spoke with her about the ins and outs of the regulations Donaldson will have to deal with as the new owner of a financial services platform.

The biggest, area of regulatory concern that he's going to have is UDAP.

UDAP stands for unfair, deceptive, or abusive acts or practices.

We we kinda, in the industry, say it's really the marketing regulation. So it's it's a a regulation that ensures that whether it's through print or through talk or through whatever medium that you're communicating to the public, that you're communicating true and factual information about the product that's being offered. That's a a huge one, because it's it's very easy to violate that that regulation. As an example, you know, to say we have the greatest, checking account available, that can be a significant issue because one of the things that UDAP says is that you have to be able to prove whatever you say. So how do you prove that you have the greatest checking account using extreme light language like greatest or lowest or fastest or best or, you know, any of those types of of things that we so easily say, especially in the influencer space you're used to using, you really have to pull that type of language back and be much more tactful in what you say as it relates to financial products.

This is especially an issue for Donaldson. So many of his videos rely on that type of over the top language to pull his fans in and keep their attention. It served him well since his very first philanthropy video all those years ago.

And just so we are all on the same page, this is not my money.

Time will tell whether Donaldson will be able to switch to a more regulatory friendly tone and if his fans will tolerate the change. But he can't just ignore these regulations, especially since his huge following leans young.

You know, you can't talk about it in the same way you you'll talk about, you know, selling the next best bubble gum. Like, you there's there's a lot of scrutiny. And, obviously, because of his his the size of his brand, his personal brand and and just who he is, there's gonna be watchdogs. So, you know, it's it's in his best interest to, reel it in.

His next big fintech partnership would take place in 2024 when he partnered with MoneyLion as part of a giveaway during Beast Games. MoneyLion is a gamified fintech. In addition to the regular services you'd expect from a financial technology company, it advertises Moneylion Games, which offers cash rewards in exchange for playing partnered games. Beast Games, of course, is mister beast TV show based on his YouTube videos inspired by the TV show Squid Game. The show made tens of millions of dollars, not enough to earn back the 100,000,000 that Donaldson invested in it, but enough to make it one of the biggest shows on Amazon Prime Video.

I am sitting on $5,000,000 in cash and competing for it. Open the gates.

In a promotional video for the show, Donaldson says

I teamed up with Moneyline, the easiest place to borrow, earn, and win money to give the 1,000 losing contestants $2,000 each.

In order to sign up for the giveaway, you had to make a free account with MoneyLion.

To enter, just scan this QR code or visit moneyline.com/pskins. And finally

And that's pretty much all of his current experience with financial services platforms outside of occasional sponsors. Brand deals, sponsorships, and content co productions with existing companies. If you're thinking, that's not a lot of experience for a soon to be financial services leader, I agree. As recently as 2024, he said he didn't even have access to Beast Industries' master bank account. That's controlled by Sue Perisher, his mom, former prison warden, and current Beast Industries chief compliance officer.

If he doesn't have a strong background in finances, you'd expect he'd at least have a stellar track record as a businessman. Right? Well, in 2020, Donaldson partnered with a company called Virtual Dining Concepts to launch Mr. Beast Burger, a ghost kitchen enterprise. Ghost kitchens are establishments that make food out of other companies' kitchens, primarily for delivery apps.

Complaints quickly came in about gross food and undercooked meats. This resulted in Donaldson cutting ties with his business partner. In 2023, he even launched a lawsuit against them. Virtual Dining Concepts launched a countersuit, saying that Donaldson failed to fulfill contractual obligations by speaking poorly about the brand on social media. Litigation is ongoing.

And then there was Lunchly, Beast's 2024 Lunchables competitor. It received complaints about alleged moldy cheese. Consumer Reports also published an article showing that despite claims otherwise, the Lunchleys they tested weren't healthier than Lunchables. Lunchly challenged Consumer Reports' test methodology and findings and said the company did not, quote unquote, believe that the testing performed on the Lunchly kits provides reliable data. The company also noted that its products are regularly tested for heavy metals, which they cited as naturally occurring and are often in a variety of foods.

Not all of Donaldson's business moves are doomed to fail. In 2022, he launched a chocolate bar brand called Feastables that, according to docs sent to investors, makes him more money than his YouTube videos.

You've heard me say that Feastful's is the best tasting chocolate in the world.

So all of this, along with his track record of pumping money into projects he later abandons, tells us that Donald son might be a better marketer than he is a businessman. And if he's not a financial expert and he's not a businessman, then why is he starting a financial services company? The honest answer is that it fits well into his existing brand. Donaldson is known for having a lot of money precisely because he reinvests it all back into his content, which is often about money. His very visible spending and lavish giveaways give the impression that he's loaded even if he doesn't have a lot of cash on hand.

And the young people who watch him see his success as aspirational. If they do what he does, maybe they could have the life he has. Financial services could give him a steadier paycheck than the famously fickle YouTube algorithm as long as he's able to avoid the dangers of messing up in a highly regulated industry. In 2025, Elite Pitch Deck said Beast Industries plan to mitigate some of those risks by white labeling a preexisting fintech. In February 2026, MrBeast Financial announced it had done just that, acquiring a fintech platform called Step.

Because Step is already operating, we can use it to guess at what Donaldson might offer once mister beast financial is up and running. He could still change what services the app offers, and the leaked pitch deck hints that he might expand into other financial areas, including loans and insurance. But this at least gives us a good place to start. STEP's front page declares itself banking for the next generation. It offers products designed for children and young adults just starting to manage their own finances.

That branding meshes well with Donaldson's audience, which is largely made up of kids, teens, and college students. If children continue to be allowed to use the app, Donaldson will have to contend with even stricter regulations. Here's Alexandria Degree again.

Some of the regulations that apply generally, they get enhanced when you're dealing with a minor. There's an assumption of a certain level of knowledge or intelligence that the average consumer would have about any particular product. And so when you're dealing with a a a child audience, that assumption is even lower, meaning there's an expectation that they know even less about how a checking account works or how a savings account works. And so you have to be even more cautious about your disclosures and your language and what you're saying and making sure that you're giving enough information so that they can make earnest good decisions about their, financial product shopping experience.

Donaldson seems to be hoping to get ahead of regulatory requirements by making financial literacy videos as part of his YouTube content.

I think it would be fun to start weaving in more, you know, tones in our videos where we educate people. Probably also on a separate YouTube channel. It's not all that would fit on the Mr. Beech channel, but educating people on investing and showing them what is a Roth IRA. And just like taking my younger audience to a similar experience I had with Woody back in the day.

You probably could find that video where you're talking about investing. And so I'd love to make financial content on end. It just feels like a a nice fit for us because we do so much with money.

Offering financial literacy education is one way that banks show regulators their users are well informed.

Providing financial literacy helps that particular bank or fintech make the argument that, yes, we are doing as much as we can to make sure that the public and our buyers have a general baseline of knowledge about what they're possibly getting into.

This isn't just important from perspective. These regulations exist because kids and young adults really do have limited information about how to manage their finances. Even fintechs that meet regulatory standards can lead young people into dark patterns. And STEP appears to be waving a huge red flag. It offers cash advances through a program called STEP Early Pay.

If you're not familiar, cash advances are short term loans that let you borrow money from your paycheck in advance with the intent that you'll pay the loan back in full whenever your next paycheck hits. Cash advances are less predatory than their big brother, payday loans. Those come with incredibly high interest rates that will quickly dig you into a hole you can't get out of. STEP claims that its cash advances don't come with an interest rate or late fees. But like many other cash advances, the app charges a fee to get the money instantly.

If you're taking out a cash advance, you probably can't afford to wait a few days. Even without high interest rates, cash advances can get young adults into debt cycles they might struggle to get out of, finding themselves borrowing from their paycheck every pay cycle. It's possible that Donaldson will shut down early pay when he's done taking over, but I think it's unlikely. Both Current and Moneylion, two fintechs he had major partnerships with, offer cash advances. Current even promotes its cash advances on the very top of the MrBeast promo page from their 2021 partnership.

Importantly, users under 18 can't use STEP Early Pay, but with the permission of their guardian, they can open a STEP investing account. STEP currently offers investing in stocks and ETFs, but there's a good chance it will expand to offer Bitcoin and other crypto investments once Donaldson is in charge. Earlier in 2026, the largest Ethereum treasury, Bitmine Immersion Technologies, invested $200,000,000 in Beast Industries. Bitmine's cofounder and chairman, Tom Lee, called out MrBeast Financial specifically as a way to get younger people into cryptocurrency. The CEO of Beast Industries, Jeff Hausenbold, also said he looked forward to finding ways to collaborate and incorporate crypto into Mr.

Beast Financial. Between cash advances and risky investing strategies, you might be wondering, is there any reason to go with Mr. Beast Financial? There are ways to start young people on investing that are relatively low risk, stable, and good for their financial education. Crypto isn't one of them.

Even if you only invest in so called stable coins, you're entering into a high risk, volatile market that makes even fully grown adults go broke. Kids are even more likely to make poor financial decisions around crypto, especially if Donaldson promotes it as a great idea. I'm not the only one who thinks so. Senator Elizabeth Warren recently sent a letter to Donaldson with concerns about the possibility of STEP offering crypto trading among other things. And while investing in individual stocks might be worthwhile as a learning opportunity under the supervision of a trusted adult, kids don't exactly make the best day traders.

STEP's other financial offerings appear less sinister. It offers a secured credit card, a type of credit card that only lets users borrow up to the money they have in a connected spending account. In practice, it functions as a riskier debit card that lets you build up your credit score. Just keep in mind that you still need to pay it off each month or you'll have to pay interest. STEP also has a somewhat confusing membership system that comes with credit card rewards and 3% back on the fintech spending account.

They aren't bad perks, but they also aren't unique. If you're an adult, you can find all of them at other fintechs, online banks, or credit unions. One last thing to note is that STEP is not a bank. Banks are chartered with the state or federal government, and they can offer FDIC insurance that protects your money in case your bank fails. STEP can't offer FDIC insurance directly.

It has to partner with another bank that actually stores your money. But FDIC insurance isn't as helpful as you think it is for fintech specifically.

So one thing to note, FDIC insurance is an insurance that kicks in if a bank fails. So I specifically said if a bank fails because FDIC insurance is really only for banks. It's not for fintechs. The fintech can have bank accounts with ABC Bank that they're offering through their platform. And if ABC Bank fails, then the insurance kicks in.

But if the FinTech fails, FDIC insurance does not kick in.

These days, banks very rarely fail. One of the reasons Silicon Valley Bank was such big news was because its failure was so unusual. But many fintechs are startups, and startups fail all the time. What's more, fintechs generally have to partner with third parties to communicate with the banks, and those can fail too. In fact, this happened in 2024 with Evolve Bank, the bank that STEP is currently partnering with for FDIC insurance.

Fintech customers across many different platforms lost access to their funds when another company Evolve worked with, Synapse, filed for bankruptcy.

Synapse was basically, a middleman that would connect to the fintechs on one side. Amongst this relationship, there's what is called a ledger. As you have a a ledger for your own personal account, it's an account of where the funds are at. And so the debacle was no one actually had accurate records of that ledger. And so when the accuracy of the records came into question and you have multiple fintechs and multiple banks in this very complicated relationship, there was a question about whose funds actually belong to who, and then there was a shortfall.

The fintech customers involved didn't get access to their money for months or even years. Years. Some still don't have access to their money today. Even in best case scenarios, fintechs come with risks that normal banks just don't have. Personally wouldn't keep my main bank account in the fintech, but everyone has different levels of personal risk they're okay with.

Mine is fairly low, but it's important that young people go into it knowing that the step account comes with extra risks. Even then, young people, especially children, probably don't have a well calibrated understanding of how comfortable they are in taking financial risks or even what those risks could mean for them if the worst happens. Happens. This segment is not financial advice. Neither I nor Never Post are financial advisers.

But for whatever it's worth, as a financial journalist, I personally wouldn't recommend going with whatever financial services Donaldson ends up offering. His videos make him look successful, but his business moves don't give me faith that he's a better fit for a fintech than any other influencer. Influencer. His approach works better for creating content, trying a bunch of things and seeing what sticks. But if a young person in your life is interested in the product, the best thing you can do is make sure they're aware of what they might be getting into and to let them know that MrBeast Financial isn't their only option, though it may be the only one that has a partnership with a candy bar.

And if they start talking about how MrBeast let them in on the best crypto deal ever, maybe alert the CFPB. Thanks so much to Alexandria Degree for speaking with me. You can find her at ask.degree. You can find more of my work at Business Insider and the Financial Health Network.

That is the show we have for you this week. We will be back in the main feed next week on or around Thursday, April 16. But important announcement, before then, this coming Sunday, April 12 is National Licorice Day. So I want you to right now stop this no. Don't stop this episode.

Keep the episode playing, but get in your cart. Drop everything. Get to your local Icelandic grocer and just start grabbing bags, stocking up on salty sweets. And speaking of salty sweets, did you know for a salty little $4 a month, which is like the cost of a big bag of candy, I'm pretty sure, you can become a member at neverpost.st? That salt helps us keep the flavor up around here, mixing up all the helpful stories that we make plus livestreams, plus news, plus chats, and gives you that sweet sweet deal of getting an ad free feed of the show along with that chewy satisfaction of supporting independent media that cleanses your palate and refreshes your outlook.

Unless you don't like licorice, which case being a member is the exact opposite of everything I just said. Never Post producers are Audrey Evans, Georgia Hampton, and the mysterious doctor. First name, last name. Our contributing producer this week is Kit Pulliam. Our senior producer is Hans Buto.

That's me. Our executive producer is Jason Oberholzer, and the show's host is Mike Ragnetta. The world is made of paper. Although I walk very carefully, the ground tears beneath my feet. Paperworld, for Diana, by William j Harris.

Never Post is a production of Charts and Leisure and distributed by Radiotopia.