A group of YouTube stars has raised more than $6m (£4.7m) to plant trees around the world by rallying their great numbers of subscribers.
Then he teamed up with other YouTubers to organize the #TeamTrees project with the target of $20m – each $1 donation is going to plant one tree. Launched on 25 October 2019, the crowdfunder raised $5m in only 48 hours, with $1.75m coming from YouTube alone, which, according to the team, is a new fundraising record for the site.
With a single Tweet, Elon Musk took the global crowdfunding project straight into “ludicrous mode.” When MrBeast quote-retweeted an image from @LoserFruit, commenting “And so far we have planted almost 6 million.. THAT’S INSANE!”, Tesla CEO replied, unprompted, “Sounds cool. Where are the trees being planted & what kind of trees?”. Brownlee wrote back to Musk, “Goes straight to the Arbor Day Foundation for planting a tree somewhere ‘in a forest of high need’ around the globe,” with a thumbs-up emoji. And a day later, Musk came back to Twitter to reply, “Ok, sounds legit, will donate 1M trees.”
Tony Karumba/AFP
Musk also changed his Twitter name to “Treelon.” His profile pic at publication time is an image of trees in a forest.
Elon Musk, Getty Images
All donations are directly sent to the Arbor Day Foundation, a US nonprofit conservation, and education organization dedicated to planting trees. They’ll plant the trees around the globe, starting in January 2020, to complete the project within three years.
And so far we have planted almost 6 million.. THAT’S INSANE! https://t.co/JNGYzp4KTm
— MrBeast (@MrBeastYT) October 28, 2019
Over 600 creators and social media influencers have joined the initiative, and many employ creative tactics to encourage donations. Jacksepticeye, the top YouTuber in Ireland with 22.9 million subscribers, hosted an 8-hour live stream in which he planted trees on the popular videogame Minecraft for each of his viewers’ donations, raising $153,000.
Other stunts included a gaming YouTuber donating $10 for each kill during a Fortnite tournament and a technology channel building a tree-planting cannon.
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