Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov. Manuel Blondeau/AOP.Press/Corbis/Getty Images Pavel Durov, the founder and owner of Telegram, is worth $17 billion. The messaging platform has 1 billion users and is worth $30 billion. Durov has faced legal trouble in France, where authorities have held him responsible for illegal activities on Telegram. Editor's note: This story first published in March 2022. It has been updated to reflect Telegram's most recent financial figures, its user numbers, and Durov's legal trouble. Pavel Durov is the founder and owner of the messaging app Telegram. Telegram co-founder Pavel Durov, center, smiles following his meeting with Indonesian Communication and Information Minister Rudiantara in Jakarta, Indonesia in 2017. Tatan Syuflana/AP Pavel Durov was born in St. Petersburg in Soviet Russia. The tech entrepreneur cofounded the encrypted messaging service Telegram with his brother Nikolai in 2013. The brothers were born into a family of intellectuals, according to a biography on the Digital-Life-Design Conference website. Durov spoke at the conference in January 2012. Durov is now worth $17.1 billion, according to Forbes. Much of his fortune comes from Telegram, which he said hit 1 billion users in March 2025. "Ahead of us stands WhatsApp — a cheap, watered-down imitation of Telegram," Durov wrote in a post on his Telegram channel announcing the news. "For years, they've desperately tried to copy our innovations while burning billions on lobbying and PR campaigns to slow us down. They failed. Telegram grew, became profitable, and —unlike our competitor — retained its independence." 2024 was a banner year for the platform, marking the first year it turned a profit. In a post on X in December, Durov said the platform ended the year with more than $1 billion in revenue and $500 million in cash reserves. He added that Telegram had paid a "meaningful share" of the $2 billion in debt it had accrued over the past four years by "taking advantage of favorable prices for the Telegram bonds." Telegram has raised about $2.4 billion in debt financing through several rounds of bond offerings between 2021 and 2024, the New York Times reported. "I hold 100 % of the company. There are no external shareholders and thus no interference," he told French magazine Le Point in June. Before founding Telegram, Durov founded a Russian social network called Vkontakte. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Pavel Durov (@durov) Durov created the network in 2006 and sold a 12% stake for $300 million in 2015. The site brought him fame: He became known as Russia's "biggest celebrity entrepreneur," according to The New York Times. But it also came with political trouble when Durov refused the Kremlin's demands to access Vkontakte data on Ukrainian protest leaders. Durov said he was fired in April 2014 from his position as the CEO of Vkontakte as state-backed entities sought to control the network, Reuters reported. The Mail.Ru group, which is owned by oligarch Alisher Usmanov, bought the network for $1.47 billion later that year. Usmanov's press service told Business Insider the group sold Vkontakte. State-run insurer Sogaz now owns it. Durov told the Times he was forced to leave Moscow in 2014 after a SWAT team appeared at his home. He told Le Point that he "spent almost all the money I had obtained by selling my VKontakte shares (more than $200 million) to build Telegram." Durov's conflicts with the Kremlin didn't end with Vkontakte. Telegram founder had become a cult icon for antiauthoritarianism in the region. Peter Kovalev/TASS via Getty Images In 2018, Telegram was banned in Russia after Durov denied the Kremlin access to user data. In response to the ban, hundreds of people protested, some of whom held signs of Durov illustrated as a saint (pictured above). The app was reinstated in Russia two years later.  Today, Telegram is playing a major role in the war in Ukraine. Durov vowed in a Telegram post in March 2022 to protect the data of Ukrainian users. Durov is of partial Ukrainian descent, according to the post. "When I defied [the Kremlin's] demands, the stakes were high for me personally," Durov wrote. "I stand for our users no matter what. Their right to privacy is sacred." Durov also launched a cryptocurrency wallet, called Fragment, in 2002. Durov has said the wallet "took only 5 weeks and 5 people, including myself, to put together." Durov said some $50 million worth of usernames were purchased less than a month after Fragment launched. Durov now lives in Dubai, where Telegram's operations are based. Palm Jumeirah in the Gulf emirate of Dubai on January 10, 2022. Giuseppe Cacace/AFP/Getty Images Durov moved to Dubai in 2017 and relocated Telegram's operations to an office in Dubai's Media City, according to Bloomberg. The network had previously been based in Berlin. In an interview with Bloomberg in December 2017, Durov said moving to Dubai afforded him "better ways to use [his] money to benefit society," as the city has no personal income tax. According to the Russian edition of Forbes, Durov obtained citizenship in the United Arab Emirates in February 2021 and was naturalized as a French citizen in August 2021. In January 2018, Durov wrote on Twitter that Telegram is "unlikely to ever consider any location be [its] permanent base." Durov has a lively social media presence. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Pavel Durov (@durov) In August 2017, Durov's Instagram post parodying Russian President Vladimir Putin went viral. Durov's post on Instagram, aptly named the "Putin Shirtless Challenge," called for users to post photos of themselves bare-chested in the style of Putin. "Two rules from Putin — no photoshop, no pumping. Otherwise you're not an alpha," Durov wrote in the post in August 2017. Over 3,000 posts with Durov's hashtag were uploaded on Instagram.  Despite having 2.6 million followers on X, Durov doesn't follow anyone, but once followed Elon Musk. While not much is known about Durov's assets, he's been known to share the occasional yacht shot on Instagram. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Pavel Durov (@durov) Durov shared a photo from the deck of a Lurssen yacht off the coast of Italy in 2016. The cost of a Lurssen yacht starts at about $5 million and can run as high as $188 million, according to Yacht World. Durov never confirmed if he owned the Lurssen yacht in the photo. Durov said in an Instagram post in August 2016 that while he wasn't a "fan of giant Lurssen yachts," he liked the manufacturer's sailing vessel.  Durov posted another photo of a superyacht on Instagram in 2015. And in another post in 2022 on his official Telegram account, Durov said he doesn't own any private jets, yachts, cars, or houses, adding that he is "unlike most billionaires." Durov's profile was once found on Tinder in 2017. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Pavel Durov (@durov) Bloomberg reported that Durov was "half-naked" in his profile photo on the dating app. "Not looking for anything serious or not serious here," he wrote on his profile, according to Bloomberg. "Just playing with the app." Durov was once married to Daria Bondarenko, who he met at university, according to Russia Beyond, citing a documentary on Durov by filmmaker Rodion Chepel. Durov once said Silicon Valley has "limited cultural life." Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov delivers his keynote conference during day two of the Mobile World Congress at the Fira Gran Via complex in Barcelona, Spain on February 23, 2016. Manuel Blondeau/AOP.Press/Corbis/Getty Images Durov was writing in response to journalist and YouTuber Yury Dud's film about Silicon Valley. The film has garnered 52 million views on YouTube. In the post, Durov listed seven reasons he did not want to move to Silicon Valley. "The US is not the best place to live or run an IT business," Durov wrote. "Local programmers are expensive, spoiled and often unable to focus on work due to the flow of outside suggestions and ideas." Durov also described the United States as a "police state" and said he was attacked in San Francisco in June 2015 by thieves who wanted to steal his phone. Durov is committed to maintaining Telegram's security for all its users. —Pavel Durov (@durov) March 18, 2017 Telegram is the "app of choice" for terror networks like ISIS, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute. But Durov has so far refused to limit access to the app or moderate its content to deter any certain group. "We cannot make messaging technology secure for everybody except terrorists," Durov said in an interview with CNN in February 2016. "It's either secure or not secure." Durov is also something of an instigator on his personal accounts. In 2014, for example, when the Russian state called for a ban on Vkontakte, Durov's response was to post a photo of a dog in a hoodie on Twitter. When Vkontakte was accused of hosting pornography, he changed his Twitter handle from "VK CEO" to "Porn King," The Calvert Journal reported. And in 2017, he shared his passport photo on Twitter, writing that it's "strangely suitable for media articles about terrorists using Telegram." French police arrested Durov amid an investigation into Telegram. Durov was arrested in France. Steve Jennings/Getty Images for TechCrunch French authorities arrested Durov near Paris on August 24, 2024, amid an investigation into criminal activity on Telegram. Police nabbed Durov at Le Bourget airport as he tried to depart on his private jet. An arrest warrant said Telegram had been used for money laundering, drug trafficking, and crimes against minors, among other offenses, the Associated Press reported.  Elon Musk, the owner of X who has also resisted moderating content, called the incident evidence of "dangerous times." Durov called the arrest a "misguided approach" in a post on Telegram. Tatan Syuflana/AP "Using laws from the pre-smartphone era to charge a CEO with crimes committed by third parties on the platform he manages is a misguided approach," Durov wrote on Telegram. "Building technology is hard enough as it is. No innovator will ever build new tools if they know they can be personally held responsible for potential abuse of those tools." He admitted that as the platform accrued its massive user base, it faced some "growing pains" that made it easier for criminals to abuse. But the "claims in some media that Telegram is some sort of anarchic paradise are absolutely untrue," he said.  He said the platform takes down millions of posts and channels daily and has already started an internal process to combat the spread of criminal activity.  Telegram has been banned in several countries over the years, including Iran, China, Thailand, and briefly in Russia. In his latest remarks, Durov reiterated that it would not compromise its principles to meet government regulations.   "We are prepared to leave markets that aren't compatible with our principles, because we are not doing this for money," he wrote. "We are driven by the intention to bring good and defend the basic rights of people, particularly in places where these rights are violated. Durov announced changes to Telegram's user data policies NurPhoto/NurPhoto via Getty Images In September, Durov announced that Telegram would change its user data and privacy policies.  "We've made it clear that the IP addresses and phone numbers of those who violate our rules can be disclosed to relevant authorities in response to valid legal requests," Durov said in a Telegram post. Durov also said moderators (with the help of AI) have improved safety on Telegram Search after its features had been "abused by people who violated our Terms of Service to sell illegal goods."  "These measures should discourage criminals. Telegram Search is meant for finding friends and discovering news, not for promoting illegal goods," Durov said. "We won't let bad actors jeopardize the integrity of our platform for almost a billion users."  The new policies were implemented globally, the CEO said. Durov's former partner, Irina Bolgar, accused him of child abuse. ddp/Steffens via Reuters Connect The New York Times reported that a Swiss complaint Bolgar made against Durov in 2023 accused him of abusing their youngest son five times between 2021 and 2022 and failing to pay child support.  "The carefully crafted image of Durov as a defender of freedom collapses when faced with his personal life,"  Bolgar told the Times in 2024. The pair met in 2012 and had a decadelong relationship, but Bolgar said that he became psychologically abusive in 2021. Durov's representatives, meanwhile, dismissed her allegations, stating they never had a romantic relationship and asserting that Bolgar used the child support Durov paid her on luxury goods.  "Mr. Durov has many children, and he supports each of them equally at a rate of $10,000 per month per child," the spokesman wrote in a statement to the Times. "Mr. Durov now hopes that the Swiss justice system will resolve this dispute so that the funds misappropriated by Ms. Bolgar can be used for their intended purpose: supporting the children." Bolgar denied those claims and provided evidence of their relationship with receipts for vacations, years of photos, and a notarized document promising 150,000 Euros a month in child support, according to the Times.  Durov said his children will have the 'same rights' when it comes to inheritance Giuseppe CACACE / AFP Durov shared details about how he plans to dole out his children's inheritance in a June 2025 interview with Le Point. "I want to specify that I make no difference between my children: there are those who were conceived naturally and those who come from my sperm donations," Durov told the publication. "They are all my children and will all have the same rights! I don't want them to tear each other apart after my death." Durov said that his children wouldn't receive any inheritance for another three decades. "I decided that my children would not have access to my fortune until a period of thirty years has elapsed, starting from today," he said. Durov offered free IVF treatments to Russian women who would have his babies. AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana, File It would seem Durov wants more children. He funded IVF treatments for women who would have his babies. A spokesperson at the AltraVita IVF Clinic in Moscow previously told Business Insider that the fertility program is only open to Russian women. Treatment would normally cost about $5,000, the spokesperson said. Durov has found himself enmeshed in the pronatalist crowd — that is, people who believe they have to fight declining fertility rates by having many children. Durov made sperm donations multiple times, resulting in him fathering "over 100 biological kids" in a dozen countries, he said in a Telegram post in July. "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," Durov said in the post. "I also want to help destigmatize the whole notion of sperm donation and incentivize more healthy men to do it, so that families struggling to have kids can enjoy more options." He told Le Point he's officially the father of six children, whom he's had with three different partners. Despite his fortune, he wants them to learn the value of hard work. "I decided that my children would not have access to my fortune until a period of thirty years has elapsed, starting from today. I want them to live like normal people, to build themselves up alone, to learn to trust themselves, to be able to create, not to be dependent on a bank account," he told the outlet. He has some thoughts on Musk, Zuckerberg, and Altman. "So, if there was some cut, real or imagined, everyone would blame DOGE," Elon Musk told "CBS Sunday Morning." Tom Brenner/The Washington Post/Getty Images Durov has some constructive feedback for the titans of tech. Musk, who defended Durov after his arrest, "can be very emotional, while I try to think deeply before acting," he told Le Point. He said Mark Zuckerberg, meanwhile, has no backbone. "Mark adapts well and quickly follows trends, but he seems to lack fundamental values that he would remain faithful to," he said. He said OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has "excellent social skills," but might lack technical expertise. AI is going to be "brutal" for established professionals Albert Gea/Reuters Durov told Le Point that we're in the midst of an "unprecedented technological acceleration." "For a teenager, adapting is natural. But for experienced professionals, like lawyers or doctors who earn high salaries, the transition will be brutal," he said. He expects some jobs to disappear, but new ones to compensate for them. "What matters is the wealth created. Living like a king without having to work like a slave is a form of progress. And as long as we want to create, to bring something to society, there will be a place for everyone," he said. French authorities lifted his travel ban DLD/Getty Images After his arrest in 2024, French authorities issued a travel ban on Durov as they investigated his complicity in the illegal activity taking place on Telegram. In July, that travel ban was eased, allowing Durov to make limited trips to Dubai, where Telegram's offices are based. Durov has both Russian and French passports. AFP reported in November 2025 that authorities had fully lifted the ban, saying Durov had been fully cooperating with the investigation. Durov wants to father more children THOMAS SAMSON/AFP via Getty Images The Wall Street Journal reported in an in-depth profile of Durov in December that the billionaire is offering to pay the IVF costs for any woman under 37 who wants to use his sperm to birth children. The Journal added in the report that the Moscow fertility clinic that holds his sperm described it as highly sought after, and that dozens of women responded to an advertisement at the clinic offering his sperm for free. Durov previously said that he had already fathered at least 100 kids through sperm donation, on top of the six children he had with his partners. All children will have equal rights to inheritance in the future, Durov said. "As long as they can establish their shared DNA with me, someday maybe in 30 years from now, they will be entitled to a share of my estate after I'm gone," said Durov, who is worth around $17 billion, during an interview on Lex Fridman's podcast in October. Read the original article on Business Insider