‘Treelon’ Musk and Jack Dorsey help YouTuber plant 20 million trees

The Arbor Day Foundation expects to have all of the trees planted by 2022, its 150th anniversary.

Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter and fin-tech firm Square, sits for a portrait during an interview with Reuters in London, Britain, June 11, 2019;SpaceX owner and Tesla CEO Elon Musk speaks during a conversation with legendary game designer Todd Howard (not pictured) at the E3 gaming convention in (photo credit: REUTERS/MIKE BLAKE/TOBY MELVILLE)
Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter and fin-tech firm Square, sits for a portrait during an interview with Reuters in London, Britain, June 11, 2019;SpaceX owner and Tesla CEO Elon Musk speaks during a conversation with legendary game designer Todd Howard (not pictured) at the E3 gaming convention in
(photo credit: REUTERS/MIKE BLAKE/TOBY MELVILLE)
“Ok, sounds legit, will donate 1M trees,” billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk tweeted at YouTube star MrBeast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, who is on a mission to plant 20 million trees. Musk then changed his Twitter name to “Treelon” to promote the cause.
In response to his pledging to buy the million trees, one Twitter user pointed out that “Elon” means “oak tree” in Hebrew and Musk acknowledged the coincidence.

Donaldson’s campaign to plant 20 million trees began in May when he asked the internet how he should celebrate reaching 20 million subscribers and one fan responded urging him to plant a tree for each subscriber.  Now Donaldson is working with the Arbor Day Foundation on #TeamTrees.
"People just keep making fun of our generation for 'retweet activism' and not actually doing something. This is your chance to make a difference... this is our chance to show the world we care,” Donaldson said in a video announcing the project, BBC reported.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and YouTube beauty guru Jeffree Star are among those who have contributed to the campaign. Dorsey gave $150,000 and Donaldson gave $100,002 to his own project, CNN reported, adding that in just a few days Donaldson raised  $8.2 million.
Star, who has 16.4 million Youtube subscribers, donated $50,000, according to BBC. The beauty YouTuber promoted the cause on his Twitter page, tweeting “EVERY $1 donated is one tree planted! #TeamTrees is a movement and their goal is to plant 20 million trees in 2020!  Help if you can: teamtrees.org.”

Donaldson tweeted that “YouTube is matching the next million dollars donated to TeamTrees thru the Youtube donate button.”


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"The average person can't afford $150,000 or a million, but we've been getting spikes of between 5 and 20 trees every time a large donation comes in and every tree matters, every single donor is important," Arbor Day Foundation spokesman Danny Cohn told CNN. More than 300,000 people have made donations since the Team Trees campaign launched, Cohn added.
The major donations have apparently caused young people to donate in record numbers, Cohn told CNN, saying "This is just another fact of this generation seeing the importance of getting trees in the ground to help the future of the earth."
"Every tree matters! I know I’ve been posting all the big donations but the small ones are just as important! WE WILL HIT 20,000,000!" Donaldson tweeted, encouraging people to donate.
The Arbor Day Foundation doesn’t plant all of the tress in one place, they’re scattered and planted where “they can do the most good for the Earth," Cohen told CNN, saying that the foundation expects to have all of the trees planted by 2022, its 150th anniversary.