Jimmy Donaldson, the YouTube creator known as MrBeast, became the first to amass 500 million subscribers on the platform Friday, crossing the milestone during a livestream as his audience watched the counter tick over in real time.

No other channel is close: T-Series, the Indian music and film label that long held the top spot, sits near 312 million, and the children's channel Cocomelon trails at roughly 201 million.

Donaldson, 28, who began posting videos as a teenager in Greenville, North Carolina, in 2012, has spent the past several years rewriting YouTube's record book.

He overtook PewDiePie as the most-subscribed individual creator in November 2022, surpassed T-Series to become the most-subscribed channel overall in June 2024, and crossed 400 million subscribers in June 2025.

The lead over T-Series now stands at nearly 190 million, a gap wider than the subscriber base of every channel on YouTube except the top two.

Donaldson marked the moment with confetti, a brief reflection on his start, and a flash of disbelief.

"I shouldn't have half a billion subscribers, like statistically I shouldn't," he told viewers, recalling that his parents went bankrupt during the 2008 financial crisis and that he saved AdSense earnings to buy a microphone and a computer when he was starting out, The Wrap reported.

The livestream drew more than 600,000 concurrent viewers and ran about 90 minutes.

The two channels closest to him operate on entirely different models.

T-Series, owned by the Indian music company of the same name, built its audience on Bollywood soundtracks, film clips, and music videos and remains YouTube's most-viewed channel by lifetime views.

Cocomelon, the third-ranked channel, produces animated nursery rhymes for preschoolers and has become a fixture on tablets and televisions in households with young children.

Both are corporate operations; MrBeast is a single creator with a production company built around him.

Donaldson's content has been driven by escalating stunts and giveaways, from a real-life recreation of "Squid Game" that is approaching 1 billion views to live competitions pitting dozens of creators against one another for million-dollar prizes.

He has extended the brand into MrBeast Burger, the snack line Feastables, and the Prime Video competition series "Beast Games." He runs a separate channel, Beast Philanthropy, that directs its earnings to charitable causes.

He told viewers Friday that he plans to release a special celebrating 500 million subscribers on Saturday.

No other YouTube channel is within 180 million subscribers of MrBeast.