MrBeast’s team stopped answering ECU emails over stalled partnership, records show
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- ECU pursued a creator training partnership; some ECU emails went unanswered.
- Last recorded MrBeast email about the program was in November 2024.
- Leadership changes coincided with the program losing prioritization.
East Carolina University appeared eager to keep the conversation going.
In an email last March to a MrBeast representative, school chancellor Philip Rogers requested they meet to advance the content creator training partnership that both sides had announced more than two years earlier. Rogers suggested they convene at ECU’s campus in Greenville.
He then explained how his public university had already progressed this promised collaboration, including a pilot program teaching students “content strategy” that Rogers said had tested well in surveys. “The feedback also provided strong indications the program would be beneficial for your current workforce,” he told the MrBeast representative, whose name the university redacted in public records recently provided to The News & Observer.
Exactly three months later, Rogers wrote an almost identical email. This time, he sent it to two MrBeast representatives (names again redacted). And instead of only mentioning the ECU campus as an ideal meeting spot, the chancellor expressed he would also be willing to travel to MrBeast corporate offices in New York City.
MrBeast’s team didn’t email back to either message, the public records indicate, and Rogers never sent a third. Asked if Rogers received any response to these emails, ECU chief communications officer Jeannine Manning Hutson told The N&O in an email Friday, “I don’t have any further information on this.”
“We’re working on their timetable a little bit in terms of their ability to dig into this as deeply as they have in the past,” Rogers told the ECU Faculty Senate in November when he was asked about the status of this educational partnership.
ECU and MrBeast’s other collaborations: stunts, prizes and helicopters
MrBeast is the online moniker of Greenville native Jimmy Donaldson, the world’s most popular YouTuber and a budding entrepreneur in media, chocolate and startups. His company, Beast Industries, remains headquartered in the Eastern North Carolina city.
Donaldson’s collaborations with the local public university stretch back several years. ECU students frequently participated in (and won) his earlier viral competitions. His team has filmed at ECU facilities and coordinated with the university’s Office of National Security and Industry Initiatives to obtain military equipment like cannons and aircraft for stunts.
“Essentially, we are looking at dropping a car from a helicopter and are interested in an Osprey to do the job,” a MrBeast representative emailed the head of ECU’s National Security and Industry Initiatives in August 2022. “Are you able to assist?”
MrBeast’s coordination with ECU continues. A November 2025 video titled “World’s Strongest Man Vs Robot” was partially filmed at the school’s baseball stadium (another segment was shot inside UNC’s Kenan Memorial Stadium.) At the end of December, MrBeast’s crew offered ECU students $100 each if they agreed to drink Feastables chocolate milk while skydiving. They accepted. And just this month, the 27-year-old billionaire Donaldson teased donating $100 million to the ECU football program.
But his plan to make the Greenville school a training ground for the creator economy has stalled — with no indication it will ever materialize.
Meals, summit and a fading ECU program
This five-year exclusive agreement began with momentum in late 2022. “Now time to get the program done and get the inaugural classes enrolled,” a MrBeast representative emailed Hutson a few months into the deal.
ECU initially predicted the program would “launch in six to 12 months”. Over the next year, the two sides scheduled meetings around Greenville — on campus, in MrBeast’s studios, and at Greenville restaurants The Scullery and Wasabi 88. The university did not pay for these meals, Hutson told The N&O.
In April 2024, ECU and MrBeast leaders traveled to an AI summit in San Diego to host a session titled “Opposites Attract, Disruptive Things Happen: MrBeast-East Carolina University Education Partnership.”
According to ECU’s records, the last email a MrBeast representative sent about the credentialing program came in November 2024. “Now that we’re back at it and have a clear timeline to get things back up and running and moving again,” a MrBeast employee had emailed, “would love to have a prep meeting to define next steps on the ECU program.”
Hutson said ECU last heard from a MrBeast representative in-person about the program at a Triangle Business Journal community event in October.
During the school’s faculty senate meeting the next month, Chancellor Rogers mentioned there had been substantial leadership changes within the MrBeast organization since the partnership was announced. In 2024, Beast Industries appointed former Silicon Valley executive named Jeff Housenbold to lead the business. His tenure has included two seasons of the Amazon Prime series “Beast Games” and a recent acquisition of a financial technology startup.
Establishing a credentialing program at ECU has not been prioritized.
“The ‘creator program’ was first conceived several years ago as an ambitious opportunity to collaborate with a local partner on educating the next generation of YouTube creators,” a MrBeast spokesperson emailed The N&O in November. “While current company leadership and ECU are having ongoing discussions evaluating the future direction of any program, MrBeast continues to permanently employ several hundred local residents and hundreds more temporarily on different projects, making a significant impact on the local economy.”
This story was originally published February 23, 2026 at 7:30 AM.
