Jimmy Donaldson, a.k.a. MrBeast, is back in court this week as part of his ongoing legal battle with Robert Earl—the cigar-chomping hospitality impresario best known for founding Planet Hollywood and, more recently, launching a ghost kitchen built to sling celebrity-branded meals. Back in 2020, Donaldson’s Beast Industries had partnered with Earl’s Virtual Dining Concepts in what seemed, at the time, like a match made in pandemic-era heaven: a YouTube star with hundreds of millions of followers, and a delivery model that didn’t require anyone to leave their homes.

But the partnership soured quickly. Some fans complained the food was “inedible,” posting photos of undercooked meat. Donaldson publicly distanced himself from MrBeast Burger, tweeting that if he “had the ability to close it, I would have done so a long time ago sadly. Sometimes when ur young you sign [a] shit deal.” In 2023, Donaldson sued Earl to get out the deal, and Earl promptly sued him right back for breach of contract.

Donaldson, of course, has pretty lofty ambitions for a guy who’s still 27 years old. Last week, he filed a trademark application for “MrBeast Financial,” which sounds equally plausible as either a fintech startup or the setup for a prank video involving suitcases full of cash. (Apparently it’s the former.) And why not? He’s YouTube’s number one performer, with more than 400 million subscribers—a number, he reminded lawyers in a deposition last year, that means Super Bowl–level viewership. “I mean, I buried myself alive for seven days,” he said, deadpan. “No one else does that kind of stuff.”

But while Donaldson’s business empire—which includes restaurants and a popular snack line called Feastables—now generates about $500 million a year, he’s still a long way from hitting his internal projections for $4.78 billion in revenue by 2029. The partnership with Earl, he alleged, has been holding him back.

In summary judgment arguments this week, Donaldson, represented by veteran entertainment litigator Steve Marenberg, is presenting a straightforward case: If you’re going to plaster my name, face, and digital footprint on a product, you’d better not screw it up. He accuses VDC of violating that basic rule—posting on Instagram without approval, flouting the agreement—and he’s trying to void the contract entirely. That would free him from exclusivity and noncompete provisions, and clear a path for a more appetizing partnership with, say, Burger King.

In its countersuit, VDC, represented by courtroom bruiser Bill Carmody of Susman Godfrey, argues that Donaldson walked away from a promising business with strong early sales. Perhaps the juiciest part of the spat coalesces around dueling media narratives: Earl’s team points to MrBeast’s swelling subscriber count, a $300 million Series C fundraising round last year, and a $5 billion valuation as proof that the burger deal hasn’t dented the MrBeast brand. Donaldson disagrees and argues that while his star may still be rising, it could be rising faster. In particular, he claims that his followers, investors, and long-term prospects were undermined by a poorly managed, morally off-brand venture that dinged his core identity as an icon of integrity and authenticity.

Hogwash, says Carmody. “Evidence uncovered in this case reveals that Jimmy Donaldson is a very different person when the cameras are off,” he writes in his summary judgment brief, opening with a decidedly Machiavellian portrait of MrBeast as “singularly focused on his financial gain at the expense of everyone and everything else.”

But the more consequential point of contention has to do with MrBeast’s finances. Donaldson’s big YouTube stunts are expensive—some of his videos cost millions of dollars to produce—and his business has razor-thin margins. To make the economics work, Carmody alleges, Donaldson has had to squeeze more money from his ancillary businesses. According to his brief, Donaldson’s investors “egged him on, insisting Beast Industries ‘needs to own at least 80 percent of each company’ to avoid ‘leaking’ profits.” In 2022, Donaldson sought to renegotiate his original deal with VDC, which included a 50-50 revenue split.

Under the proposed new structure, Beast Industries would have taken 77.5 percent—but the deal couldn’t be closed. Carmody alleges that a more favorable arrangement was not enough for Donaldson, who aspired to one day take the company public. Donaldson’s lawyers counter that the new structure had been scuttled by VDC “kowtowing” to an investor. Regardless, the standoff featured a heated meeting between Donaldson and Earl in Florida, in January 2023, that included raised voices, slammed doors, and one broken clothes hanger.

A few weeks later, according to court documents, Donaldson admitted to his friend Trey Steiger, the co-founder of Prime Hydration, that he’d signed a “fucked deal.” Steiger texted him some advice to raise product safety as a concern: “My middle name is leverage brother.” Donaldson responded in kind: “Tell [Earl] to give me god dam control or I’ll just let it die. Idgaf.”

Eventually, Donaldson decided the courts were his way out. His lawyers fired off a demand letter alleging contractual breaches, while internally, Donaldson shared what he called his “giga brain play”: “We win the VDC lawsuit. Then we go to Burger King/mc Donald’s etc. Offer for them to buy Beast Burger and put it on their menu exclusively ... they can buy it for 300 to 400M and then I promote them and we have a royalty deal.”

“The Beast Parties’ own communications confirm that their concern was not quality, but money,” Carmody’s team crows in its brief. Marenberg, Donaldson’s lawyer, sees it differently, of course. He points to thousands of customer complaints about cold fries, raw burgers, and shoddy fulfillment—undisputed evidence, he argues, of VDC’s neglect. Fans were holding Donaldson personally responsible for all of this, he stresses. As for the late 2022–early 2023 negotiations, Marenberg writes that his client was simply trying to buy Earl out “precisely so that it could impose appropriate quality control and stop the bleeding when Donaldson’s requests that Virtual Dining fix the problems went unheeded.”

If the case continues, we could be headed to a trial next year in New York, with potential nine-figure damages on the table. Donaldson will have to convince a jury that the botched burger rollout inflicted irreparable harm on his reputation, and that VDC’s counterclaim—for hundreds of millions in lost enterprise value from the demise of MrBeast Burger—is entirely speculative. VDC, for its part, is scoffing at the notion of reputational damage. They point to a $150 million investment check from Vincent Viola’s Three Brothers Family Office, a $7 million endorsement deal from Zaxby’s, and the continued flood of brand suitors looking to partner with Donaldson.

Earl’s team further mocks Donaldson’s claim of reputational damage by noting that when the chips are really on the table—like when reports surfaced of old livestreams in which Donaldson used racist and homophobic slurs—the creator retained Matthew Hiltzik’s crisis P.R. firm. Likewise, when stories came out alleging workplace harassment and mistreatment of contestants on MrBeast’s Amazon show, Donaldson commissioned consumer sentiment surveys and hired Quinn Emanuel to investigate. In a brief dripping with shade, Carmody writes: “How the Beast Parties treat a true crisis—the kind that might tarnish MrBeast’s brand—speaks volumes when those same steps are not taken in the face of what they falsely claimed was another.”

Marenberg calls that argument “outrageous” and “unfair,” and insists that Donaldson took different steps in response to different problems. And anyway, in this instance, his response was decisive: He sued.

Indeed, this is the only time Donaldson has ever brought someone to court. And it’s hard to believe he needs the money. On the contrary, he’s exposing sensitive details about the MrBeast business, finances, and carefully managed public image. Ever the showman, Donaldson seems to have decided this public spectacle is worth the cost.

Thanks, Eriq. I’ll see everyone on Thursday.

Matt