YouTuber MrBeast Gives Eye Surgery, Tesla to Man Who Could Never See to Drive

• YouTuber MrBeast paid for 1,000 blind and near-blind people to receive cataract removal surgery.
• The surgery, which might cost between $3,000 and $5,000 per eye, takes only 10 minutes to finish.
• One man who couldn’t drive due to his bad eyesight was also gifted a red Tesla.

YouTuber MrBeast just gave the gift of sight — and a Tesla — to a person that couldn’t see clearly for his entire life.

In his latest YouTube video, MrBeast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, paid for 1,000 blind and near-blind people all around the world to receive surgery. On top of the cataract surgery that the video describes, some patients received gifts, like $10,000 in money or $50,000 for a school fund. 

“Half of all of the blindness on this planet is individuals who need a 10-minute surgery,” Jeff Levenson, the ophthalmologist and surgeon who worked with Donaldson, says within the video.

In line with the nonprofit MyVision.org, cataract surgery costs a mean of $3,500 per eye.

Satchel, considered one of the recipients of the attention surgery, had poor vision from birth and have become almost completely blind after a go-karting accident, Donaldson says within the video.

“He mentioned multiple times he really desires to drive after this procedure fixes his eyesight, so I’ll see you at the top of the video once we surprise him with a brand recent Tesla,” Donaldson tells the camera after Satchel goes into surgery.

Three weeks later, Donaldson lets Satchel, who has never driven before, drive him around a car parking zone after surprising him with a red Tesla.

Levenson told CNN that Donaldson’s team called him in September in regards to the idea, but he almost hung up because he’d “never heard of MrBeast.”

Because the video was uploaded to the MrBeast channel, which has 130 million subscribers, on Sunday, it has been viewed 48 million times. 

A representative for Donaldson didn’t immediately reply to Insider’s request for comment.

Donaldson is considered one of the most-followed and highest-paid YouTubers on this planet. He first went viral in January 2017 after being energetic on the platform for nearly five years. His videos often consist of elaborate stunts — like a real-life version of “Squid Game” — and giveaways.

Those viral videos have made Donaldson a well-liked presence in his hometown of Greenville, North Carolina, where his Beast Philanthropy organizes regular food drives and other charity efforts. 

Donaldson is a longtime fan of Tesla CEO Elon Musk. 

“I actually need to be Elon at some point,” he wrote on Twitter in 2020. Later that yr, he tweeted that Musk is his dream collaborator. 

He’s since been critical of Musk, tweeting that the Tesla cofounder should step down as Twitter CEO and dismissing Musk’s plan for Twitter to compete with YouTube.  

Donaldson’s solution? Potentially becoming Twitter CEO himself. In December, he tweeted at Musk. asking if he could have the position. Musk responded that “it isn’t out of the query.”