Team Trees celebs: From Jeffree Star and Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke to Elon Musk

'For Treebeard'
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Megan C. Hills1 November 2019

YouTuber Jimmy Donaldson (who is better known by his moniker ‘Mr Beast’) has undertaken an ambitious endeavour: to plant 20 million trees by 2020.

Donaldson recently hit a major milestone when he reached 20 million subscribers on the video streaming platform and after asking fans how to celebrate, he took up the suggestion to start the #TeamTrees campaign.

Since then, many high profile social media personalities, CEOs and celebrities have joined the cause.

Donaldson has since partnered with the Arbor Day Foundation and for every $1 raised, the foundation will plant a single tree as well as maintain it as it grows to combat climate change.

One of the biggest donations so far came yesterday, when Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke pledged to donate 1,000,001 trees - a charitable move which also doubled as bit of one-upmanship against Tesla founder Elon Musk (who recently pledged to donate one million trees).

Lütke’s donation comes a day after Shopify's favourable Q3 2019 financial report, which prompted him to announce he had hit 1 million merchants, after which a Twitter user asked "plant 1 million trees for 1 million merchants?"

Lütke agreed in a follow-up tweet, which makes him the most generous donor to the campaign - taking the top spot from Musk.

He left no doubt that the donation was partly aimed at the Tesla founder, as he tagged Musk in a tweet addressed to Donaldson.

Referencing a popular meme, he wrote, “OK Boomers, on behalf of 1,000,000 Shopify merchants and my own defunct snowboarding store, I’ll donate 1,000,001.”

Musk responded, “Congrats! Shopify is great btw. Nice work.”

Donaldson is currently more than halfway through to his goal with 10,500,649 trees planted and is working with over 600 YouTubers to achieve the 20 million mark. To learn more about the #TeamTrees campaign, you can read our guide or make a donation on the official website.

For more on who’s donated so far and how much has been raised, here’s a list of notable names below.

Tobi Lütke

Pledge: 1 million and one trees

The Shopify CEO pledged a single tree more than Musk’s generous donation and like Musk, changed his Twitter handle, adding tree emojis to the end of his name.

Elon Musk

Getty Images

Pledge: 1 million trees

Musk pledged to donate 1 million trees to the campaign and went a step further on social media - changing his name to Treelon and making his profile picture a leafy forest.

Musk announced his donation by responding to one of Donaldson’s tweets, writing, “Ok, sounds legit, will donate 1m trees.”

He then added “For Treebeard”, referencing the Lord of the Rings character of the same name.

Susan Wojcicki

Pledge: 200,000 trees

YouTube CEO Wojcicki pledged to donate 200,000 trees, but YouTube’s help in the campaign goes beyond Wojcicki’s donation. The social video platform has developed a button that can be added to any YouTuber’s posts to allow people to donate directly to Donaldson’s campaign along with a real time tracker of where the campaign is currently. YouTube also announced it would be waiving any transaction fees.

Jack Dorsey

Getty Images

Pledge: 150,000 + 200,000

The CEO of Twitter pledged to donate 150,000 trees on Tuesday, then added yet again to his donation with an additional 200,000 yesterday.

Jeffree Star

Getty Images

Pledge: 50,000

Beauty YouTuber Jeffree Star, who is set to release a make-up collection with fellow YouTuber Shane Dawson, pledged to donate 50,000 trees.

Jacksepticeye

Pledge: 20,000 + 153,000

Irish gaming personality Jacksepticeye pledged to donate 20,000. On the campaign’s official page, his donation was accompanied by the words “Ding Ding Ding.” He also shared a video which began the same phrase, which promoted the campaign and called #TeamTrees “the biggest YouTube collab which has ever been on the platform” and held a charity livestream which raised an additional $153,000 for the campaign.

Ninja and Jessica Blevins

Getty Images

Pledge: 15,000

Ninja, who was formerly the biggest Twitch streamer in the world before he migrated to rival platform Mixer, announced that he and his wife Jessica Blevins were donating 15,000 trees.

Ethan and Hila Klein

Pledge: 1,000

Ethan and Hila Klein of h3h3productions revealed that they had donated 1,000 trees on Twitter. In a tweet, Ethan thanked Donaldson for "making eco-responsibility cool, proud of ya!". He also volunteered somebody called Ian (presumably of iDubbbz fame) to "plant an additional 1000 trees during his weekends over the next year."

Game Grumps’ Arin Hanson

Pledge: 12,345

The Game Grumps founder wrote the message “I like this!!!” to accompany his donation.

Simply Nailogical

Pledge: 12,000

Beauty guru Cristine Raquel Rotenberg, also known as Simply Nailogical, pledged 12k trees and wrote, “I’m afraid of change… climate change.”

Doctor Mike

Pledge: 11,111

Doctor Mike, the world’s most photogenic medical professional, announced that he would be donating 11,111 trees last Saturday.

Philip DeFranco

DeFranco, who runs a YouTube news network called The Philip DeFranco Show, has turned on the donation widget for #TeamTrees on his channel and also covered the initiative in a recent show;

The Try Guys

As with DeFranco, The Try Guys also enabled the #TeamTrees donation widget on their channel and created a PSA music video which included the lyrics, “We gotta help out Mr Beast, we gotta plant 20 million trees...The earth is dying, not enough trees, so we’re here to say plant enough trees.”

PewDiePie

PewDiePie

PewDiePie, the biggest independent creator on the YouTube platform, shared a video early on into the campaign to promote the initiative which now has 8.6 million views and counting.

Jack Conte

Pledge: 10,000

Patreon CEO Jack Conte announced in a video that the company would be making a sizable donation to the campaign, saying, “I just wanted to let folks know that we’re joining and it’s awesome to see creators rallying like this...Go Team Trees, rock out.”

Markiplier

YouTube gaming personality Markiplier announced that any sales from a limited line of his Heist merchandise would go towards Team Trees. A button has also been enabled on his official website which directly takes users to the Team Trees campaign.

Other YouTubers

Jake Paul, Safiya Nygaard, Casey Neistat, Guava Juice, Lele Pons, Shane Dawson and more have also lent their support by promoting the campaign.

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