Telegram – Pavel Durov: The profile of the billionaire ‘father’ of 100 children arrested in Paris

Controversial is the course of his head, 39-year-old billionaire Pavel Durov, who was arrested yesterday (24.08.24) in his posts, the Russian (Telegram) on Instagram, his message is clear. “To be truly free, you must be ready to risk everything for freedom,” writes the founder of the Telegram social networking platform. This freedom also applies to Telegram. There is minimal supervision of the content of messages. That is exactly what the French authorities are now accusing him of. Yesterday (24.08.24), police arrested 39-year-old at Le Bourget Airport in Paris. According to the French television channel TF1, the investigation could start as early as Sunday. Apparently, preliminary investigations against Durov have begun a long time ago. He is said to have been an accessory to drug trafficking, fraud and offences concerning child abuse, because he did not interfere enough with Telegram and did not cooperate adequately with authorities. According to Guy Verhofstadt, a member of the European Parliament and former Prime Minister of Belgium, Telegram is at the heart of global cybercrime. “Freedom of expression is not without responsibility!” he wrote on platform X. However, Durov also defended this freedom against Russian authorities and fled the country in 2014. Russia, of all countries, now wants to support him. This refers to a Moscow Foreign Ministry announcement. Vladislav Danakov (Vladislav Davakov), deputy president of the State Duma, said that “every possible effort” should be made to transfer Durov to the United Arab Emirates or Russia, if he is not released. “Only with his consent, of course,” he added. Conflicts with the Russian authorities “He believed that Russia was the biggest problem”, wrote Dmitry Medvedev, former president and Prime Minister of the country. “For all our common enemies, he is still Russian”. Durov was born in Russia in 1984, but grew up partly in Turin, Italy, where his father taught literature as a professor. The family later returned to St. Petersburg. There, Durov and his brother Nikolai founded VKontakte (now vk.com), a Russian social network similar to Facebook, in 2006. In 2013, they then established the Messenger Telegram service, which is estimated to be used by around 900 million people worldwide each month. Durov repeatedly came into conflict with the Russian authorities: As early as 2011, it is said that it refused to transmit VK data to the Russian authorities. In 2014, the Kremlin asked Durov to block the site of the well-known critic of the Kremlin Alexei Navalny, who later died, in order to limit the protests. Durov refused. After investigations at his company’s headquarters and home that same year, he resigned as a director of the United Kingdom, sold his shares and left Russia. He later moved Telegram headquarters to Dubai. The service is controversial because talks and channels are not coordinated by the platform and are limited only very occasionally – even when they call openly on criminal offences and users traffic drugs or share pornographic content in their conversations. The application is also popular in Germany, where the unconventional and anti-vaccination scene uses it to organize. On the other hand, in some cases, opposition groups abroad use Telegram to coordinate their activities, as Apple’s products, for example, closed the service under pressure from authorities during protests in Hong Kong in 2019. Telegram is also one of Russia’s most important platforms for independent media driven into exile. This is because Russians can read their news through Telegram channels. At the same time, the government also uses the platform to disseminate propaganda messages. For a long time, Telegram had a reputation for being safer than other messengers. However, only private conversations are encrypted from end to end – and only if users actively choose a corresponding arrangement for each conversation. Father of 100 children Darrow describes himself as a digital node who lives and works online and therefore does not need to be rooted in one place. He is said to be a citizen of France, St Kitts and Nevis and the United Arab Emirates, among other countries. The magazine “Forbes” calculates Durov’s fortune at $15.5 billion. For years he communicated with the public exclusively through social media posts such as Telegram or Instagram, without giving interviews – until he spoke to right-wing conservative and controversial American presenter Tucker Carlson in 2024. A few weeks ago, Durov drew attention to the statement that he is a father of about 100 children through a sperm donation in twelve countries. However, he “prefers to live alone”. Russian authorities have been trying for years to limit Telegram. As early as 2018, Durov published a statement that “we will continue to defend the privacy and freedom of our Russian fellow citizens”, or: “Russian authorities have ruled out 18 million IP addresses to block Telegram, but the application remains accessible to the Russians. Thank you for all support and love”, followed by a Russian flag and the #digitalresistance hashtag. Users in Russia also face increasing problems in recent days, and YouTube is much more difficult to use than Russians since mid-August. Russia reacted to the arrest this weekend. The foreign ministry said the Russian embassy had taken the necessary steps in such a situation. Efforts are being made to clarify the situation, “though the representatives of the businessman have not made a request”. The company’s finances The company was initially supported by the personal funds of founder and CEO Pavel Durov after selling his share to VK. In January 2018, he started a private placement and raised $1.7 billion from investors such as Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia Capital and Benchmark. Following the closure of the TON project, the company had to return to investors the money that was not spent on its development during 2018 and early 2019, while the project was active. On 15 March 2021, Telegram made a public placement of five-year bonds of $1 billion. Funding was necessary to cover debts of $625.7 million, including $433 million to investors who bought futures contracts for Gram brands in 2018 and included buyers such as David Yakobashvili. On March 23, Telegram sold additional US$150 million bonds to Abu Dhabi Mubadala Investment Company and Abu Dhabi Catalyst Partners. One day later, Mubadala Investment Company stated that Russia’s state investment fund was involved in its agreement without being made public through the joint investment platform Russia- OAU for the purchase of convertible bonds. A spokesperson for Telegram said: ‘RDIF is not included in the list of investors to whom we sold bonds. We would not be open to any transaction with this fund” and “the funds they invested, including Mubadala, confirmed that RDIF was not among their LPs [limited partners]. ‘ According to the contract, bond holders will be allowed to convert them into shares with a 10% discount if the company carries out an open public registration. Durov said this move was aimed at “allowing Telegram to continue developing worldwide, remaining faithful to its values and remaining independent.” According to press reports, prior to placing the bonds, Durov had rejected an investment bid for a 5%-10% stake in the company, as well as several undisclosed, estimating the company over a range of $30-40 billion. In March 2024, Telegram sold an additional $330 million in bonds. Durov said selling bonds “will further consolidate our position as an independent platform that is able to challenge the “Goliath” of our industry.”