David Dobrik Net Worth: Has Controversy Shrunk His Millions?

If you are at all interested in YouTube, chances are you’ve stumbled across the name David Dobrik. Dobrik’s YouTube channel is one of the biggest and most impactful on the platform and this, in combination with his many ventures and investments, has helped him build up quite a net worth. As of 2023, David Dobrik’s net worth is estimated at $26+ million.

The Slovakian-American YouTuber wears many hats. He’s a famous social media personality, an actor, a vlogger, and an entrepreneur. He’s one of the highest-paid social media personalities today. At one point, his annual earnings reached $15 million!

And while his fame on YouTube has diminished in the last year, David Dobrik is slowly regaining his popularity. Let’s dig into the story of the YouTuber David Dobrik and how he achieved his online fame.

David Dobrik’s Net Worth Breakdown:

David Dobrik’s journey to wealth began with his YouTube channel, but his financial success extends beyond the money he earns from video views. Much of his income is generated through brand sponsorships, as well as Clickbait, his apparel line. Now, the exact figures are mostly kept private, but Dobrik’s estimated net worth is believed to surpass $26 million at this point. Let’s break down some of the key sources that contribute to this.

David Dobrik Net Worth: Early Life

David Julian Dobrik was born on July 23, 1996, in Košice, Slovakia. He is one of four children. The family moved to Illinois, USA, when Dobrik was six years old, and his father almost instantly opened a real estate photography business to support the family.

David Dobrik went to Vernon Hills High School, played tennis, and worked as a waiter during that time. In 2014, he made it to the Boys Tennis State Tournament and won third spot.

That same year, Dobrik graduated from high school and enrolled at the College of Lake County in Illinois. However, he dropped out during his first year and moved to Los Angeles to start his career as an entertainer and social media personality. He posted his first video on Vine at the age of 16, in 2013.

In terms of personal life, David Dobrik is not married today. Between 2015 and 2018, Dobrik was in a relationship with Liza Koshy, and in 2019, he married the mother of Jason Nash, one of his friends – Lorraine Nash. This was intended to be a joke, but he actually married the 75-year-old mother to become his friend’s father-in-law.

 

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Later that same year, David Dobrik and his wife announced that they’d end the marriage and signed the divorce papers soon after.

David Dobrik Net Worth: How He Built His Social Media Empire

Once David Dobrik moved to Los Angeles, he almost immediately started sharing content on Vine. His six-second clips quickly gained popularity, making his follower count surge past a million. During this time, he often collaborated with other Vine users including Jason Nash, Gabbie Hanna, and Liza Koshy.

Even back then, Dobrik had a presence on YouTube. He was part of Second Class, a YouTube group that, by the time of Vine’s closure in 2015, had amassed over 18,000 subscribers.

David Dobrik’s YouTube Career

Today, Dobrik is one of the richest social media personalities. He’s had his ups and downs and today’s earnings from his YouTube channels are significantly lower than they used to be, but he’s slowly regaining his fame and fortune.

David Dobrik’s YouTube Channels

In 2015, the young man started his first YouTube channel called ‘David Dobrik’, using the fame he had gained to that point, mostly from his Vine account. He built his YouTube channel around vlogs and funny skits inspired by real-life situations though they are often partly scripted.

The next year, he launched his second channel called ‘David Dobrik Too’. Here, he shares blooper reels, Q&A sessions, direct sponsorship deals, and the popular challenge videos he collaborated on with his former girlfriend, Liza.

In less than one year, the secondary channel garnered 4.6 million subscribers. Dobrik’s work had a massive impact on the platform and social media in general too. He was already inspiring hundreds of copycats trying to replicate his success on YouTube and other social media platforms.

In 2018, Dobrik uploaded a breakup video with Liza Koshy, which amassed 60 million views! The couple had been highly active on the platform and they regularly shared videos together, so their breakup video resonated strongly with the audience.

In December of the same year, David Dobrik received YouTube’s Diamond Play Button, a recognition for surpassing 10 million subscribers on his channel. Paper Magazine named him one of the ’10 Social Media Personalities Making the Most Noise’ soon after.

Also in December 2018, Dobrik shared a new video showing an elephant’s toothpaste experience on his TikTok channel. This video won the number 1 spot in Top Viral Videos on the platform – and it received over 180 million views.

From this point forward and throughout 2020, David Dobrik was the fifth most viewed YouTube creator with over 6.4 billion accumulated views on his channel.

VIEWS Podcast

In addition to his own channel, David Dobrik also started a podcast with Jason Nash. The podcast is his third YouTube channel. As of November 2023, it has over 1.61 million subscribers.

The Vlog Squad

Following his YouTube success, Dobrik launched the Vlog Squad, a group of his friends that would make fun videos together. The squad grew to include millions of fans and multiple members, but it’s not exactly active these days.

Jason Nash, a member of the squad, told Insider in November 2019:

The videos that we make, especially the ones I do with David, they’re pretty high intensity, so there’s always these crazy requests going on. People really connect with that kind of stuff… It’s our real lives with comedy mixed in, and that’s my favorite stuff.

However, the pandemic put a halt to David’s videos for an entire year before he returned to filming in February 2021. This comeback was short-lived.

In March 2021, the Vlog Squad, which included David, was involved in a controversy. An anonymous woman came forward accusing Durte Dom aka Dominykas Zeglatis, a member of the squad, of sexual misconduct. She referenced the 2018 video titled “She Should Have Not Played with Fire”.

The accusation was major, and both David and Dom addressed it multiple times. Dom apologized for his involvement in filming it, and David expressed that he had “learned from his mistakes”.

In the aftermath of the controversy, some internet personalities severed ties with the group, including Dobrik, which prompted him to halt his filming of videos for a while. Instead, he focused on a new venture – his pizza shop called Doughbrik’s Pizza, which opened in Los Angeles in 2022.

In April 2021, Dobrik once again came under scrutiny after the release of “Don’t Try This at Home”, a documentary by the Vlog Squad. A former member of the Squad, Jeff Wittek, claimed that he was badly injured during the filming.

In June 2022, he pressed charges against Dobrik, asking for $10 million for negligence. The suit is not yet settled but, if the court rules in Wittek’s favor, this will significantly diminish Dobrik’s net worth.

YouTube/TikTok Earnings

Most of David Dobrik’s net worth comes from his YouTube and TikTok accounts along with the endorsements he makes on them.

His David Dobrik channel counts over 17.7 million subscribers and has 536 videos.

His David Dobrik Too channel counted over 8.09 million subscribers as of November 2023.

Even though he’s not active on YouTube these days, he is very active on TikTok and has over 26 million followers on the platform.

In a Men’s Health interview, David Dobrik shared how much he made at his peak:

I was getting around 60 million views per month and my [monthly] check would be a little over $275,000. It literally felt like I was a drug dealer.

However, he also shares how much he earns on YouTube today, after being inactive on the platform for a long time:

“Right now, I’m actually making less money a month on YouTube than I was when I was waiting tables at a retirement home,” he says.

In the interview, David Dobrik reported that his YouTube earnings had dropped to around $2,000 a month!

However, he’s slowly regaining power on the platform, so it’s only a matter of time before this number increases again.

Sponsors and Advertisers

A massive portion of the money he made on YouTube came directly from sponsors and advertisers and not YouTube itself. David Dobrik’s career at its peak brought him millions, and most of this came from ads and sponsors.

In April 2019, Chipotle collaborated with Dobrik, creating the Dobrik Burrito, which mirrored his regular order. This partnership not only created personalized a menu item but also earned the star the “Brand Engagement Award” at the Streamys Brand Awards in September of that same year.

Apparently, even though he earned a lot from these partnerships and sponsorship deals, he doesn’t own equity in any of the firms. In one interview, he shared the following:

There are so many things that I could have done to set myself up for the future. One thing is with equity. With SeatGeek, there was a company that I was part of a lot. But never, ever did it cross my mind to ask for equity. So that’s what I wish that I would have been a lot better at.

His partnership with SeatGeek was notable, as were his deals with EA, HelloFresh, Bumble, Dollar Shave Club, Audible, and DoorDash.

At the peak of his popularity, Dobrik also contributed to music videos of big stars including Juice WRLD, Scotty Sire, and Trisha Paytas.

Other Ventures

His YouTube channels were definitely profitable for the young entertainer, but Dobrik also dabbled in the business world, was a show judge, and a presenter, and had several appearances in movies.

In terms of TV ventures, Dobrik served as a judge on America’s Most Musical Family in 2019 alongside Debbie and Ciara Gibson, and he also hosted events like the Kids’ Choice Awards and the Teen Choice Awards.

Dobrik was a presenter at the American Music Awards in 2019, and a guest judge on Chopped Junior in the show’s ninth season.

His TV career didn’t stop there. Dobrik has appeared in movies and TV shows including:

• The Angry Birds Movie 2
• An Interrogation
• Airplane Mode
• The Late Late Show with James Corden
• The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon

David Dobrik owns several ventures these days. For starters, he launched and still owns his clothing line, Clickbait. Clickbait sells hoodies, shorts, hats, and more.

Most recently, Dobrik opened his restaurant Doughbriks, a Pizza restaurant in Los Angeles. He focused on this venture for two years before the grand opening in November 2022, and it turned out to be an instant success. According to NBC News, the restaurant opening drew massive crowds despite the controversy surrounding Vlog Squad’s work.

Dobrik also co-founded a photo-sharing app called Disposable in 2019. The app allowed its users to create retro-looking photos on their phones, and it was supported by advertisements. By February 2020, Disposable had over a million downloads.

Disposable was, at one point, the most downloaded free app in the App Store. In 2021, it was relaunched and rebranded as Dispo and became a fully-fledged social network. While it still exists, Dobrik resigned from the board of directors. It is unknown if he still has a stake – or what his earnings are from this venture.

Philanthropy

The YouTuber David Dobrik is also a philanthropist. He has contributed to various organizations, including:

• The Innocence Project
• ACLU Foundation
• Color of Change
• Unicorn Riot
• Black Lives Matter Global Network

What Else Does David Dobrik Invest In?

Dobrik has many investments in real estate and cars and has gifted fans and friends new automobiles. Let’s take a closer look at what he has in his portfolio.

Real Estate

In 2017, Dobrik bought a house in Studio City worth $2.5 million but sold this home in June 2021 for $3.5 million.

In August 2020, he bought a property in Sherman Oaks, California for a price of $9.5 million. The residence has a recording studio and a big garage for the Youtuber’s luxury cars. This is currently his home.

Car Collection

Not only has he gifted cars, but David Dobrik also found himself on the receiving end of a lavish gift – the $518,000 Ferrari F8 from Corrina Kopf, which he received in April 2023. His car collection over the years has included:

• Tesla Model 3: starting around $37,990
• Tesla Model X: starting around $79,990
• Convertible Ford Mustang: starting around $31,620
• Jeep Wrangler: starting around $28,475
• 1976 Ford Bronco: ranging from $20,000 to $100,000
• Holy Trinity Porsche 918 Spyder: starting around $845,000
• Ferrari 458 Spider: starting around $263,553

What Can We Learn From David Dobrik’s Success?

David Dobrik is more than a popular YouTuber or TikToker – he is a highly innovative person who has dabbled in numerous ventures, built a large fortune, and donated a lot to good causes.

Dobrik is a truly inspiring person despite the recent controversies. He exemplifies the American dream. He came to the US when he was only 6 and dreamed of a better life. His dedication to his craft helped him realize his dream, building a massive social media presence and turning it  into a fortune of millions of dollars. His journey has been a roller coaster, demonstrating to the world that you can overcome many challenges, learn along the way, and create wealth with creativity and effort.

However, those same controversies are evidence that you need to be careful about what you create – and the effect it might have on others. The current suit against him and the anonymous complaint about one of his videos have left a big mark on Dobrik’s reputation, one that he has spent years trying to recover from. He can still learn from his mistakes and turn his career back around again.