YouTube’s top creator, MrBeast, wants to do more than just appear in videos on your phone. He wants to power your mobile phone service, too.
The content creator, who has over 450 million subscribers, is planning to launch a phone business called “Beast Mobile” as one of his company’s next ventures, Beast Industries CEO Jeffrey Housenbold said on Wednesday, speaking at The New York Times’ DealBook Summit.
Housenbold’s remarks confirmed Business Insider’s earlier reporting that the YouTuber had ambitions to get into the phone business.
MrBeast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, is unlikely to try to build a mobile network from scratch. Instead, he may launch Beast Mobile via a business model known as a mobile virtual network operator, or MVNO, according to an investor deck from early 2025 that Business Insider reported on earlier this year.
An MVNO phone service typically utilizes the built-in infrastructure of a major carrier, such as T-Mobile or Verizon, allowing the virtual network operator to focus on branding and marketing the service to customers. The strategy has been in vogue among celebrities like the “SmartLess” podcasters, President Donald Trump, and Ryan Reynolds, who sold his Mint Mobile business to T-Mobile in 2023.
“The ultimate objective is to focus on the marketing and sales and outsource everything to a third party,” Alex Besen, an MVNO consultant and founder and CEO of The Besen Group, told Business Insider earlier this year.
MrBeast’s ambition to sell wireless plans taps into a broader push at his company to diversify the business beyond YouTube and media.
Over the past few years, the company has expanded into a variety of business lines, including its chocolate-bar brand Feastables and lunch-food brand Lunchly.
The company is also planning to get into financial services, Housenbold said on Wednesday.
Peter Kafka contributed reporting.
