Jimmy ‘MrBeast’ Donaldson has called out popular Russian YouTuber A4 for stealing his thumbnails, posting side-by-side comparisons that show the creator has been photoshopping his face onto MrBeast.

His videos largely consist of challenges like, “the last on to get out of hypnosis challenge,” and “24 hours in Kindergarten challenge.” Among the videos are some that are strikingly similar to MrBeast’s own content like, “the last one to leave the desert island challenge.” In his tweet, Jimmy wrote: “The largest channel in Russia just takes my thumbnails and photoshops his face on mine.” The thumbnail comparisons show just that, with A4 using some exact copies of MrBeast’s thumbnails with the faces replaced, and others recreating the exact setup of the original thumbnails. https://twitter.com/MrBeastYT/status/1362842357142585348 A4 responded to the tweet on his Instagram story, and from some commenter’s rough translations the YouTuber appears to brush off the backlash.

MrBeast next to Russian YouTuber A4

The translations imply that he considers the quality of the content to be the most important thing, claiming that he can do it better than MrBeast.

Look what he replied. For those of u who don’t understand Russian he said 1 “picture, pfff it’s nothing. Better to the watch d quality of my content than the American. I do it 10K times better. Pics takes 10 mins, filmn- 4-10hrs (w/o editing and planning)” 🤦🏽‍♂️pic.twitter.com/ByTvY4nZ81

mrbeast holding pile of games at gamestop

— Ajisegiri Mayowa (@AjisegiriMayowa)Aug 08, 2025

While many fans are calling for A4 to be banned, it’s unclear what exactly the rules are regarding copyright issues for thumbnails. Regardless, the issue has baffled fans who had never heard of A4 until MrBeast tweeted about him.