Jimmy “MrBeast” Donaldson is taking an ex-employee to court. The star YouTuber behind the $100 million Beast Games Amazon Prime reality TV show has accused a former IT staffer of stealing secrets and installing hidden cameras across the his Greenville, North Carolina headquarters and is asking a judge to have all “improperly” acquired information about his company returned.
According to the April 4 lawsuit, as first reported by Polygon, Leroy Nabors was hired by the MrBeast YouTube company back in 2023, and before he was fired last October “downloaded more than one thousand Beast confidential files.” The alleged trade secrets heist included “highly confidential information about business strategy, financial information, capitalization tables, financing documents, individual employee personal information, and other MrBeast intellectual property.”
An investigation into Nabors’ activity before he was fired allegedly uncovered a series of hidden cameras the company believes he and his daughter, who ran an IT firm he subcontracted out to, secretly controlled. When confronted about the alleged downloading of proprietary company information, including to a personal DropBox account, Nabors claimed it was just a standard company backup procedure, according to the legal filing. Donaldson is now suing the ex-employee both for damages and for the return of any stolen information.
The new legal battle comes just months after the YouTuber faced a class-action lawsuit from former contestants of the Beast Games show alleging mistreatment and negligence during filming that led to safety issues and other harms. Donaldson called the claims “blown out of proportion” as he tried to wrestle back control of his 350-person company’s narrative amid increasing scrutiny. The final episode of the first season aired in February and saw the winning contestant earn $10 million for guessing the correct brief case that was holding the prize.
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