Most-followed TikToker Khaby Lame reveals millionaire salary

It’s a salary fit for an internet king.

The most-followed TikToker on the platform revealed just how much he makes per post, setting him up for a multimillion dollar salary this year.

Khabane “Khaby” Lame, who surpassed Charli D’Amelio in June as the most-followed content creator, touts 149.5 million followers at just 22 years old.

In an exclusive with Fortune, Lame dished that in addition to the millions of likes he earns per video, he also racks up cash. In fact, he can make up to $750,000 per clip, which has him on track to make a whopping $10 million dollars in 2022.

Most of Lame’s income comes from brand deals in the form of online content. On average, it’s estimated he makes around $400,000 per TikTok clip he creates for any given brand.

“Most influencers get to a certain point in their career where they’ve endorsed and supported a number of brands and have a flat fee for these structures, but they start to want a bit more incentive or upside from those relationships,” Raina Penchansky, CEO and founder of influencer management company Digital Brand Architects, told Fortune. “That’s when we start to more meaningfully discuss ways for them to get into deeper relationships with companies or around companies they want to start.”

Lame’s videos, mostly wordless, captivate viewers with humor conveyed through his comedic body language and online bits.

In a recent clip with more than 11 million views, Lame shows himself debunking a magic card trick posted by another user, saying it was “easy” in the caption. While he’s created similar videos demystifying others’ unbelievable tricks, he also racks up the views on clips in which he pokes fun at others’ videos or makes up his own skits.

Although the silence is part of the joke, Lame, a Senegalese immigrant, is hellbent on learning English. He practices with a tutor every day for an hour, in addition to watching American cartoons and movies, and told Fortune he hopes to win an Oscar someday.

But not being an English speaker hasn’t stopped him from achieving internet greatness.

The TikToker’s fame has landed him among the stars — literally — meeting the likes of rapper Snoop Dogg, actor Idris Elba and singer Jason Derulo. In fact, he’s even scored him a collection with Hugo Boss, and the company also paid him a mint — to the tune of $450,000 — to walk in their Milan fashion week show and post online. Additionally, according to a contract reviewed by Fortune, he was also paid $750,000 by a major Hollywood studio for a single TikTok.

But Lame’s life wasn’t always this lavish.

Immigrating with his parents from Dakar, Senegal, in 2001 to the Turin suburb of Chivasso, Italy, he grew up alongside his three siblings. After graduating high school, he labored as a factory machine worker until the pandemic struck, leaving him out of a job.

What first began as a hobby birthed out of boredom in 2020 has now become Lame’s livelihood. In a matter of days, he rapidly gained millions of followers on TikTok, paving his way to becoming the most-followed creator on the app, eventually superseding social media sweetheart D’Amelio.

He does admit, however, that he knows his time in the limelight might be short-lived, as the ever-changing interests of the internet might knock him off his TikTok throne. At least while he’s there, he’s basking in the spotlight with the hopes of making it on a screen larger than that of a smartphone.

Lame’s story does not stand alone, though. The TikTok boom, in part due to the pandemic, fostered a new generation of internet stardom, one mostly dominated by Gen Z.

Like any social media platform, TikTok is a hub for both serious creators and the average person alike to post about pretty much everything under the sun. That being said, there’s internet fame to go around, with the algorithm giving anyone, like Lame, the chance to go viral.

Creator Lance Stewart, who first started his online career on Vine back in the day, previously told The Post that he has “never grown on a platform as fast” as he has on TikTok. At the time, he touted 13.2 million followers after being on the app for a mere eight or nine months, compared to other sites where he slowly built a following over multiple years. Now, two years later, he’s amassed 22.4 million.

TikTok reached 1 billion users per month, which was reported last year, and it’s only continuing to grow. The app is rising up the ranks amongst its competitors — while dealing with copycats — surpassing Twitter, Pinterest and Snapchat, while still trailing behind Facebook, YouTube and Instagram.