During a recent episode of the Joe Rogan Experience featuring Steve-O, the popular podcaster came to the defense of YouTube megastar MrBeast, who has faced mounting criticism online.
The discussion arose when Steve-O mentioned winning MrBeast’s latest competition, ’30 Celebrities Compete to Win a Million Dollars for Charity,’ which was created to promote his Prime Video series ‘Beast Games.’ Steve-O was enthusiastic about the experience, calling Beast Games “the most phenomenal TV show that I’ve ever watched.”
Rogan agreed with the praise, noting: “He’s a wizard, man. That dude’s very smart. He’s like a really interesting guy because he’s kind of open about what he does and he tells people how to do it, right? You know, like how to manipulate the algorithm and how to get people to get excited and engage on your link based on what the images and the text says. And he thinks about all that.”
The conversation then shifted to recent controversies surrounding MrBeast. Rogan explained that people became angry when MrBeast filmed content in Egypt with Zahi Hawass, a controversial figure who was formerly head of the Ministry of Antiquities.
“People did not like him,” Rogan said, explaining that Hawass “pushes a narrative in defiance of all the evidence that has been sort of uncovered by all these other people.”
Rogan described the criticism MrBeast received: “A lot of people online are mad at him for having this guy on. Nobody knows how they built the pyramids and he’s like, ‘They built it because it was a national project.’ And I was like, ‘Come on, bro.’ Like, that’s a fun thing to say, but that doesn’t tell me how they got all those rocks there.”
He continued: “That was really controversial. A lot of people mad at Mr. Beast for that. But in the like the algorithm that I have, people are calling him a shill and letting this guy say nonsense on your show.”
Beyond the Egypt backlash, some critics also question MrBeast’s political neutrality. Online detractors have pointed to reports that he attended a Trump rally and allegedly hired Republican lobbyists, including former North Carolina State Senator Tom Apodaca, to represent his company’s interests.
Additionally, his public associations with figures like Logan Paul, Keemstar, Peter Thiel, and Elon Musk, along with business decisions such as expanding ventures in Saudi Arabia, as evidence that he may not be as “apolitical” as his branding suggests.
Or, perhaps, MrBeast doesn’t want people to know his politics because he will lose business.
Jimmy attended a Trump rally.
He recently hired 4 Republican lobbyists including Tom Apodaco (former Republican State Senator for NC) to lobby for his company.
His bffs are people like… https://t.co/agGW4eWPzu pic.twitter.com/FhTL91Kiya
— Rosanna Pansino (@RosannaPansino) March 5, 2026
During the episode, Rogan made his key point about the nature of online criticism. He advised, “None of Mr. Beast’s fans like we’re going to abandon him… Nobody cares, man. There’s just too many voices.”
Rogan expanded on this theme, noting that MrBeast faces criticism for everything simply because of his massive success. “He gets it for everything because he’s uber successful, right? So everything he does, like it could be like he only gave away a million dollars to charity. It’s ridiculous, man. Like you’ll never make all those people happy. They don’t want to be happy. That’s a big part of what’s going on.”
Rogan then went on to mention a metaphor: “You’re jumping into a pool of mentally ill people and trying to stay clean. You’re like washing. ‘Hey guys, guys, let’s be reasonable.’ They’re not reasonable. They’re s**cidal. They know what a g*n tastes like. They’ve had it in their mouth recently. This is not a place where you’re going to get like rational discourse.”
