Who is Pavel Durov? Telegram founder, Russian exile and father to over 100 children

‘Russian Mark Zuckerberg’, who has been arrested in France, says he once went a month without eating food

Pavel Durov, the founder of the hugely popular messaging app Telegram, remains in detention in France after being arrested over the weekend as part of an ongoing judicial investigation.

The 39-year-old tech billionaire has been described as Russia’s Mark Zuckerberg for his role in founding the social media platform VK, however he was forced to leave the company in 2014 after refusing to comply with government demands to share details of protestors that were active on the site.

He continued to run Telegram from Dubai, having obtained dual citizenship from the UAE and France, and travelled regularly throughout Asia, the Middle East and Europe before his arrest on Saturday.

The arrest was reportedly about insufficient moderation on Telegram, with French President Emmanuel Macron saying on Monday that it was “in no way a political decision”. A police spokesperson added that the investigation related to a lack of compliance with cyber and financial crimes conducted on Telegram.

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Telegram had 950 million active users in July 2024, according to Durov, making it the world’s fourth most popular messaging platform behind WhatsApp, WeChat and Facebook Messenger. In a statement on Sunday, Telegram said Durov had “nothing to hide” and that the app abides by EU laws and follows industry standards when it comes to moderation.

“It is absurd to claim that a platform or its owner are responsible for abuse of that platform,” stated the message, which was posted to the company’s official channel on the Telegram app. “We’re awaiting a prompt resolution of this situation.”

Telegram founder Pavel Durov has lived in self-imposed exile from Russia since 2014 (Pavel Durov/ VK)

The Russian exile rarely gives media interviews but often shares personal updates and insights through his Telegram channel, which has more than 11 million subscribers.

In 2019, he said that he had given up consuming food as part of a radical diet aimed at improving his productivity and focus, while a more recent post revealed that he has over 100 children.

“I was just told that I have over 100 biological kids,” he wrote in a post to his official Telegram channel on 29 July. “Fifteen years ago, a friend of mine approached me with a weird request. He said that he and his wife couldn’t have kids due to a fertility issue and asked me to donate sperm at a clinic for them to have a baby.

“The boss of the clinic told me that ‘high quality donor material’ was in short supply and that it was my civic duty to donate more sperm to anonymously help more couples... Fast forward to 2024, my past donating activity has helped over a hundred couples in 12 countries to have kids. Moreover, many years after I stopped being a donor, at least one IVF clinic still has my frozen sperm available for anonymous use by families who want to have kids.”

The tech billionaire added that he plans to “open-source” his DNA so that his biological children can find each other more easily.

“Of course there are risks,” he told his 11 million subscribers, “but I don’t regret having been a donor. The shortage of healthy sperm has become an increasingly serious issue worldwide, and I’m proud that I did my part to help alleviate it.”

Demonstrators with a icon stylised painting depicting Telegram's founder Pavel Durov protest against the blocking of the popular messaging app in Russia, during a May Day rally in Saint Petersburg on 1 May, 2018 (AFP via Getty Images)

His arrest has prompted condemnation from privacy and free speech advocates, with NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden describing it as “an assault on the basic human rights of speech and association”.

The app has faced controversy, having been used by everyone from Islamic State terrorists to the recent UK rioters, who organise and share information in private groups. Telegram says that “calls to violence” are explicitly forbidden and that any channels containing them are removed. At an event in 2015, Durov said that he believed “the right for privacy is more important than our fear of bad things happening, like terrorism”.

In his final message, posted on 14 August, Durov wrote: “When I turned 11 in 1995, I made a promise to myself to become smarter, stronger and freer every day. Today Telegram turns 11 years old, and it’s ready to make the same commitment.

“Every day, Telegram should become: Smarter (more features for the people); Stronger (more popularity among users); Freer (more independent and self-sufficient).”