Which NC college did MrBeast actually briefly attend? And why it kind of matters
I’m Brian Gordon, tech reporter for The News & Observer, and this is Open Source, a weekly newsletter on business, labor and technology in North Carolina.
In April, 27-year-old YouTube sensation MrBeast filed a lawsuit accusing a former employee named Leroy Nabors of taking thousands of confidential documents from MrBeast’s North Carolina headquarters.
The files Nabors allegedly “exfiltrated” days before he was fired contained staff compensation details, non-public business transactions, and “highly sensitive” information about investors.
MrBeast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, also accused Nabors of placing multiple hidden cameras throughout the company’s offices in Greenville, about 80 miles east of Raleigh.
Nabors held various positions with MrBeast between July 2023 and October 2024. In a motion last Friday, Nabors’ lawyer asked the Eastern District of North Carolina to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing in part that MrBeast “has not alleged concrete injury or harm by the mere possession of these supposed trade secrets.”
Rereading the initial complaint against Nabors, I noticed a peculiar inaccuracy. It is not an error that would seem to matter to the overall lawsuit, but it does inform a small part of Donaldson’s biography. And it was interesting that MrBeast’s lawyers made this mistake about their own client.
In the lawsuit, MrBeast’s attorneys wrote that the world’s biggest YouTuber “briefly attended East Carolina University, before he elected to focus his time on growing Beast and its affiliated business.”
That Donaldson attended ECU, a large public school in his hometown of Greenville, has been widely reported in Business Insider, CNN, and even Encyclopedia Britannica. If you Google, “Where did MrBeast go to college,” the answer shows as East Carolina University.
This isn’t correct.
“East Carolina University has no record of James “Jimmy” Donaldson enrolling at the university,” the university’s chief communications officer Jeannine Manning Hutson said in an email to The N&O. The school’s student information system doesn’t show him ever applying.
Donaldson does have ties to ECU. He grew up near the campus and has used university facilities for some of his earlier viral competitions — eccentric contests that often ended with East Carolina students winning lucrative prizes or cash.
In 2022, ECU announced Donaldson would help launch a content creator program at the school. ECU initially predicted this program would “launch in six to 12 months,” yet today, the program’s webpage remains down and the university did not share when courses might start or any details about its development.
“We continue to operate within the terms of our agreement that outlines an educational partnership with the company,” Manning Hutson said in a separate email.
No one is under any illusion that Donaldson remained at any college for long. As MrBeast himself tells it, he was a YouTube-obsessed teenager pressured by his mother to get a degree after graduating from Greenville Christian Academy in 2016. Donaldson didn’t go to many — or possibly any — college classes and dropped out partway through his first semester.
Which college, then, did he drop out of?
Profiles of MrBeast in Rolling Stone and Time have it right. Donaldson enrolled at Pitt Community College, about a 10-minute drive south of ECU’s campus.
“Got in touch with the right folks here at PCC,” the school’s spokesperson Robert Goldberg wrote in an email to The N&O. “And they have informed me James Donaldson was enrolled at Pitt Community College in the 2016 Fall Semester.”
So there. Does it matter a lot which North Carolina college MrBeast briefly attended? Probably not. Especially in the ongoing lawsuit.
Yet having the true coming-of-age story for a massive celebrity that so many young people admire (and may try to emulate) feels important. And when reporting on the promised ECU content creator program, which three years later doesn’t appear to have progressed much, it might be worth knowing that the university’s famous partner didn’t attend the school.
Wolfspeed bankruptcy watch
Wolfspeed shares slipped over 30% on Wednesday after Bloomberg reported the Durham semiconductor supplier is close to finalizing its Chapter 11 bankruptcy plan. The company declined to comment on the report in an email to The N&O.
Its stock price began Friday trading below 90 cents — continuing a three-year descent from above $100.
Per Bloomberg, which cited unnamed sources, Wolfspeed will propose a prepackaged bankruptcy that gives creditors like Apollo Global Management temporary control over the chipmaker in order to eliminate billions of dollars in debt. Creditors will then vote on this plan before Wolfspeed files Chapter 11.
To perhaps win favor with shareholders, the proposal gives them a path to recoup up to 5% of their equity. Typically, bankruptcy filings leave shareholders with less.
Clearing my cache
- Fewer green energy projects, more defense? In a sit-down interview with The N&O, North Carolina Commerce Secretary Lee Lilley said the state is reacting to new priorities out of Washington. “If federal investment is really shifting somewhat out of a clean energy space, one thing we think it’s going to shift towards is defense and defense technology,” he said. “North Carolina should be a leader in that.”
Lilley added Gov. Josh Stein continues to lobby for Biden-era policies he said helped the state ink several clean energy projects over the past four years.
- North Carolina researchers could see federal funding return after a judge ruled the National Institutes of Health unlawfully ended grants tied to race, gender identity and LGBTQ+ topics. The Department of Health and Humans Services says it might appeal the order. “We’re proceeding as if the grant is going to return,” one UNC-Charlotte researcher told The N&O after the ruling. “We’re also preparing for the reality where nothing will change.”
On July, 1, North Carolina will begin levying a new tax on rideshare operators — up to 1.5% on their gross receipts.
- NCInnovation is at a crossroads in its short history. The nonprofit was entrusted in the past two years with a $500 million taxpayer-backed endowment to help UNC System researchers commercialize their research. It has awarded its first grants, yet now, both the North Carolina House and Senate budgets require the organization to return its half-a-billion-dollar endowment.
National Tech Happenings
- After more than a year of trying, Nippon Steel has finally acquired U.S. Steel. The Biden and Trump administrations both had held up the deal over national security concerns. Nippon, a Japanese steelmaker, ultimately gave the White House a unique “golden share,” which affords the Trump administration (and all future ones) a unique level of control over the business.
- In a memo to employees, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said AI will likely shrink his company’s workforce over the next few years.
- And a month after laying off 6,000 workers, Microsoft is expected to ax thousands more positions in the coming weeks, as the company prioritizes spending on data centers and AI operations.
Thanks for reading!
This story was originally published June 20, 2025 at 9:35 AM with the headline "Which NC college did MrBeast actually briefly attend? And why it kind of matters."
