X team is ecstatic this week, for all intents and purposes, MrBeast aka Jimmy Donaldson, the most popular YouTuber of all time has uploaded one of his videos directly on X, and this, according to Donaldson's post, is done as a way of testing the monetization capacity of X.
This follows a recent meeting with X owner Elon Musk where Donaldson told Musk that there is little point for him to upload content directly to X in the first place since he cannot make as much money from his videos on X as he can on YouTube.
In addition, there has been a bit of past history between Musk and Donaldson since Musk wanted to persuade Donaldson to assist in fighting off the blitz of new video traffic that X. On purely revenue terms, though, Donaldson is correct; there's no possibility that X ever would or could equal the money he takes in on YouTube.

For context, MrBeast reportedly generates between $2 million and $4 million per video he uploads, and he posts about once a week. X has paid out around $30 million in total to all creators over the past six months.

Still, apparently he's somehow prevailed upon MrBeast to give his new creator revenue share program a whirl, which X has screamed from the rooftops on every channel it can, as endorsement for its new "video first platform" strategy.
Which, of course, isn't really.

Donaldson originally posted the same clip up on YouTube back in September, where it's amassed over 211 million views up to this point. So it's not an X exclusive, but rather, as Donaldson describes, a test to see if he can expand his monetization potential by re-uploading old clips to X as well.

But for X, a lot is riding on this being an experiment that works. 

Musk has often said that he wanted X to be a competitor to YouTube in every way, even mentioning at one time that he feels X is nearly surpassing YouTube on some criteria already. Now, of course, that is patently absurd, but whatever drives his optimism forward helps him achieve success, and the Donaldson having posted a clip to the app directly can, in some ways, be considered a plus in its own right.

But it will be interesting to see how Donaldson's fans react to his tacit support of Musk's X project and how the broader MrBeast community looks at this new, potential partnership.

Indeed, a member of MrBeast's crew, Kris Tyson, came out as transgender last year, a community that Elon Musk has repeatedly criticized in many X posts.

It would be interesting to know how Tyson feels about contributing to Musk's X project.
For Donaldson, though, it's all business, and with such high stakes for X, you can be sure that Elon and Co. will trumpet this video in any manner that they can, in the hope of maximizing its revenue potential, and convincing Donaldson, and other creators watching on, of the potential for the platform in this respect.

But this stage seems a stretch in touting it as a coup for the app, though maybe, as another stepping stone, this will see X's video strategy take off.

X has also recently announced signing a number of big-name TV stars to deals for exclusive content that will see them air new programming direct in the app.
Evidently, X would like to have its own video entertainment network that could indeed compete with television.

Which, I have noted, Twitter and, for all intents and purposes, almost any other social app, have attempted repeatedly in the past, with only limited success to date. Maybe, however, in the middle of this shift in which social apps move from being an auxiliary interface for entertainment engagement, to being a central hub of entertainment itself, now is the time to more aggressively go after the behavior that can be maximized in the app.

And maybe, Donaldson and his MrBeast team will be part of that effort.

It would be interesting to see the results of this experiment, at least.