What Is El Rubius' Net Worth?
El Rubius is a Norwegian-Spanish YouTube personality who has a net worth of $7 million. El Rubius is known for gameplay videos and vlogs. He has more than 40 million subscribers on YouTube and 14.3 million followers on Twitch, and he has received YouTube Creator Awards for hitting 100,000 subscribers (2012), one million subscribers (2013), and 10 million subscribers (2015). By 2019, El Rubius' YouTube channel was the most-subscribed channel in Spain, and in 2021, his channel was featured on a list of the 50 YouTube channels with the biggest number of subscribers in the world. In 2014, he published the book "El Libro Troll" ("The Troll Book"), and he followed it with three "Virtual Hero" comic books in 2015 and 2017. From 2018 to 2020, a "Virtual Hero" anime series aired on the Spanish digital television service Movistar+, and El Rubius voiced himself on the show. A 2016 tweet by El Rubius is the world's most retweeted tweet, and that year he was included on "Time" magazine's list of "next generation leaders." As of July 2023, El Rubius had the third most-followed Twitch channel.
(Photo by Carlos Alvarez/Getty Images)
Early Life
El Rubius was born Rubén Doblas Gundersen on February 13, 1990, in Mijas, Andalusia, Spain. He is the son of a Norwegian mother and Spanish father, and he has a half-sister and two half-brothers. El Rubius' parents divorced when he was 3 years old, and he moved to Bergen, Norway, with his mother, Bente. He later moved to Madrid after his mother became involved with a Spanish man who El Rubius refers to as "The Godfather." El Rubius attended primary and secondary school in Madrid, and he credits his first game system, the SNES, for inspiring his love of geek culture and video games. He returned to Norway as a teenager, and after graduating from high school, he went back to Spain and worked at a supermarket. El Rubius studied 3D modelling and animation at Madrid's Arteneo School.
Career
El Rubius launched his first YouTube channel, "elrubius," in 2006, and his first video was a montage of "Grand Theft Auto IV." In 2011, he began uploading "Skyrim" montages, and due to his channel not being able to be associated with a Machinima Network, Inc. contract because of three copyright infringement complaints, he created a new YouTube channel, "elrubiusOMG." In 2012, El Rubius began uploading videos in which he attempted to summarize a video game in one minute, and these videos went viral in Spain. His most-viewed video is a 2012 "Minecraft"-centric parody of the Chayanne song "Torero" called "Minero," which has amassed more than 106 million views.
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The "elrubiusOMG" channel eventually grew to 40.4 million subscribers, and his videos have been viewed over 7.4 billion times. He created his Twitch channel, "Rubius," in 2018, and as of this writing, he has 14.3 million followers there. El Rubius' 2014 book, "El Libro Troll," was #1 in Spain for eight weeks, and it was a bestseller at that year's Madrid Book Fair. In 2014, he also starred in the web series "La otra película" with fellow YouTuber Mangel. In 2018, an animated series based on El Rubius' "Virtual Hero" comics book premiered on Movistar+. The series aired 18 episodes over two seasons, and critic Alberto Cano called the show "a fresh, fun animated fiction that rises as a notable product for the young audience." In 2022, the documentary "Rubius X" began streaming on Amazon Prime Video, and it "celebrates the tenth anniversary of Rubius, one of Spain's top content creators, publishing his first video."
Personal Life
During a January 2021 Twitch broadcast, El Rubius announced that he was intending to move to Andorra because he wanted to be closer to his friends and live in a place where he would get less public recognition than he got in Madrid. This statement caused controversy on social media since many streamers and YouTubers had done this due to Andorra having a lower tax burden than other countries. El Rubius was criticized by a Spanish Treasury official, who called the decision unethical. Pablo Iglesias, the former vice president of the Government of Spain, also criticized the move and retweeted a tweet from retired pro basketball player Juanma López Iturriaga explaining that YouTube personalities were moving in order to avoid paying taxes.
Awards and Nominations
In 2016, El Rubius won a Play Award for YouTuber of the Year. In 2022, he earned an ESLAND Award nomination for Streamer of the Year.
