Pavel Valeryevich Durov[b] (Russian: Павел Валерьевич Дуров; born 10 October 1984) is a Russian technology entrepreneur best known as the founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Telegram, a messaging platform launched in 2013.
Durov was born in Russia, where he co-founded the social networking siteVKontakte (VK) in 2006. He left VK in 2014 following disputes with the company's new owners and increased pressure from Russian authorities, which also led him to leave the country. In 2013, he and his older brother, Nikolai Durov, developed Telegram, and in 2017, they moved to Dubai, United Arab Emirates, where its headquarters are now located.[5]
Durov was listed on Forbes's billionaires list in 2023, with a net worth of $11.5 billion. His fortune is largely driven by his ownership of Telegram.[6] As of 25 August 2024[update], Durov was the 120th richest person in the world, with a net worth of $15.5 billion, according to Forbes.[7] In 2022, he was recognized by Forbes as the richest expat in the United Arab Emirates.[8] In February 2023 Arabian Business named him the most powerful entrepreneur in Dubai.[9]
Durov publicly stands for Internet freedom and criticises the establishment that tries to restrict it.[10] Since 2021, he has held citizenship in Russia, Saint Kitts and Nevis, the United Arab Emirates, and France.
On 24 August 2024, Durov was arrested by French police on criminal charges relating to an alleged lack of content moderation on Telegram and refusal to work with police, which allegedly allowed the spread of criminal activity.[11][12]
Early life and education
Pavel Durov was born on 10 October 1984[13] in Leningrad, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union, younger brother of Nikolai Durov. He spent most of his childhood in Turin, Italy, where his father was employed.[14]
Durov's father Valery Semenovich Durov is a Doctor of Philological Sciences and the author of academic papers. Since 1992 he has been head of the Department of classical philology of the philological faculty of Saint Petersburg State University.[19] In March 2022 Durov wrote that, "On my Mom's side, I trace my family line from Kyiv. Her maiden name is Ukrainian (Ivanenko), and to this day we have many relatives living in Ukraine."[20]
Career
VK
During his university years, Durov created the highly popular forum spbgu.ru. In 2006, he met his former classmate Vyacheslav Mirilashvili in Saint Petersburg. Vyacheslav showed Durov the increasingly popular Facebook, after which the friends decided to create a new Russian social network. Lev Binzumovich Leviev, an Israeli classmate of Vyacheslav Mirilashivili, became the third co-founder. Durov became chief executive officer (CEO) and attracted his older brother Nikolai, a multiple winner of international math and programming competitions including the International Mathematical Olympiad, to develop the site.[21][22][23]
Durov launched VKontakte for beta testing in September 2006. The following month, the domain name Vkontakte.ru was registered.[24] The new project was incorporated on 19 January 2007 as a Russian private limited company. The user base reached 1 million in July 2007, and 10 million in April 2008. In December 2008 VK overtook rival Odnoklassniki as Russia's most popular social networking service.[25] The company grew to a value of US$3 billion.[26]
Pavel Durov at the HighLoad++ conference in Moscow, 2010
In 2011, he was involved in a standoff with the police in Saint Petersburg when the government demanded the removal of opposition politicians' pages after the 2011 election to the Duma; Durov posted a picture of a dog with its tongue out wearing a hoodie, and the police left after an hour when he did not answer the door.[27][23]
In 2012, Durov publicly posted a picture of himself extending his middle finger and calling it his official response to Mail.ru Group's efforts to buy VK.[27] In December 2013, Durov decided to sell his 12% to Ivan Tavrin (at that time 40% of the shares belonged to Mail.ru Group, and 48% to the United Capital Partners). Later, Tavrin resold these shares to Mail.ru Group.[28][26][29][30]
Departure from VK
Pavel Durov at the TechCrunch conference in Berlin, 2013
On 1 April 2014, Durov submitted his resignation to the VK board; at first there was confusion about the veracity of his resignation.[31] However, Durov himself said it was an April Fool's Joke on 3 April 2014.[32][33] His resignation message had signed off with "So Long and Thanks for All the Fish", a line from cult novel Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and the title of a later book in the series.[31] A company spokesman said there was an official statement about his resignation that turned out to be a link to the Rick rolling internet meme.[31]
On 21 April 2014, Durov was dismissed as CEO of VK. The company said it was acting on his letter of resignation a month earlier that he failed to recall.[34][37] Durov then said the company had been effectively taken over by Vladimir Putin's allies,[37][38] suggesting his ouster was the result of both his refusal to hand over personal details of users to federal law enforcement and his refusal to hand over the personal details of people who were members of a VK group dedicated to the Euromaidan protest movement.[37][38] Durov then left Russia and stated that he had "no plans to go back"[38] and that "the country is incompatible with internet business at the moment".[34]
Telegram
Pavel Durov and Mike Butcher at the TechCrunch conference in San Francisco, 2015
On leaving Russia, he obtained Saint Kitts and Nevis citizenship by donating $250,000 to the country's Sugar Industry Diversification Foundation and secured $300 million in cash within Swiss banks. This allowed him to focus on creating his next company, Telegram, focused on an encrypted messaging service. Telegram was headquartered in Berlin and later moved to Dubai.[26][39]
In January 2018, Durov announced that, in a bid to monetize the growing success of Telegram, he was launching the "Gram" cryptocurrency and the Telegram Open Network (TON) platform.[40] It raised a total of $1.7 billion from investors.[41] However, these ventures were halted by American regulator U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission which argued in court that Grams bypassed U.S. financing laws and should return the money to investors.[42]
In 2018, Russia attempted to block Telegram after the company refused to cooperate with Russian security services. A leaked letter by a Federal Security Service employee stated that the block was actually tied to the company's intention to launch the Telegram Open Network.[43] During the attempted block period, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs continued to operate official channels on the app. The block order was lifted in 2020, after two years of block attempts, which the service reportedly evaded using domain fronting. The stated reason was Telegram agreeing to "counter terrorism and extremism" on the platform.[44][45][46][47]
Pavel said that Telegram became profitable for the first time in 2024, with total revenue over $1billion.[48]
Durov was arrested on 24 August 2024 at Le Bourget Airport by officers from France's anti-fraud office, which is attached to the French customs authority.[49] He was arrested upon exiting his private jet after landing in France from Azerbaijan.[50] Durov's arrest was based on an arrest warrant issued by the French judicial police as part of a preliminary investigation in relation to 12 suspected violations regarding crime on the Telegram platform.[51][52] On 28 August, Durov was presented before a prosecutor in court, who formalized 6 charges related to refusal to communicate upon request from authorized authorities, complicity in criminal activity and provision of cryptology services.[53][54] On the same day Durov was released from the custody and placed under the judicial supervision, with the obligation to post 6 million euro bail, ban to leave France, and the obligation to report to the police station twice a week.[55]
One of the charges against Durov carries a maximum penalty of 10 years' imprisonment and a fine of €500,000.[53] Following the issuance of formal charges, Durov was released on bail and is barred from leaving the territory of France until the case is resolved.[56] It is said that Durov had previously avoided traveling to Europe due to potential legal risks.[57] According to Le Canard enchaîné, Durov claimed during his arrest that he had traveled to Paris to dine with French President Emmanuel Macron, which Macron's office denied.[58][59]
Reports also indicate that Durov was on the list of individuals wanted by French authorities, and his arrest was because of his alleged failure to cooperate with judicial officials, including issues related to Telegram's activities.[57] According to French police, criminal activity on Telegram went unfettered through lack of moderators.[60] Natalia Krapiva, a lawyer at the digital rights group Access Now, said that French authorities could try to force Durov to provide Telegram's encryption keys to decrypt private messages, "which Russia has already tried to do in the past".[61]
On December 6, 2024, Pavel Durov appeared at the Paris Judicial Court to be interrogated by a judge for the first time. The judge questioned the CEO and founder of Telegram to determine whether he was involved in illicit activities relayed or based on his platform.[62]
During Durov's arrest and indictment, WSJ reported that he became a target of a spy operation in 2017. In a joint operation code-named "Purple Music", French spies and the UAE hacked Durov's iPhone. He was targeted as the governments were concerned about the usage of Telegram app by pro-democracy activists and dissidents. The application also attracted Islamist extremists, drug traffickers and cybercriminals. Despite the hack, Durov received the Emirati citizenship in 2021, when the UAE also invested over $75 million into Telegram.[63]
Personal life
Durov is not married.[6] He moved to the United Arab Emirates in 2017 and lives in Dubai, where Telegram headquarters are located. He was naturalized as an Emirati citizen in February 2021.[64][65]
Durov was naturalized as a French citizen in August 2021, giving him European Union citizenship.[66]Le Monde described the naturalisation as "mysterious", since Durov had not resided in France apart from brief visits. Le Monde suggested that Durov was naturalised via the rarely used "merit foreigner" procedure that is awarded directly by the French government to people viewed to have contributed exceptionally to France's international influence or international economic relations. Durov officially changed the French version of his name to Paul du Rove. One year later, he told his fans that the application for a passport had been an April Fools' joke and that he had forgotten about that but then saw that "the application actually got approved and the passport reissued".[1]
Children
According to Forbes, Durov has two children with his ex-wife Daria Bondarenko: daughter Alina (born 2009) and son Mikhail (born 2010). Durov met Daria Bondarenko while studying at university; as of 2021, she was living in Barcelona. In 2021, Russian Forbes ranked Durov's children as the sixth richest heirs in Russia.[67] On 23 July 2024, Irina Bolgar (born 1980), who lives in Switzerland, contacted Forbes and shared documentation showing that she is the mother of three children by Pavel Durov,[68][69] also providing a family photo with Durov taken in 2020. Forbes confirmed the authenticity of the documents.[70] In August 2024, Bolgar filed a lawsuit against Durov in Switzerland. She alleged that Durov abused her youngest son five times between 2021 and 2022, and that Durov stopped seeing their children in September 2022. The lawsuit was filed several months after Durov, according to Bolgar, stopped paying her child support of €150,000 per month.[71] As a follow-up, an investigation into the said alleged abuse of a son was opened against him by the Juvenile Office (OFMIN) of the Central Directorate of the Judicial Police of France.[72]
Durov claims to have fathered more than 100 children via sperm donation in 12 nations since 2010.[2][73]
Views
Durov is a libertarian. He has practiced intermittent fasting and abstains from alcohol, caffeine and recreational drugs.[74][75][76][77] Durov has said he maintains an ascetic lifestyle and promotes freedom from personal possessions.[78][79][80]
At least once, in June 2019, he followed a water-only fasting regimen for at least six days to try to improve his creativity.[77]
In 2012, at the age of 27, he published manifestos detailing his ideas on improving Russia[81] and donated a million dollars to the Wikimedia Foundation to support Wikipedia.[82][83]
During the 2011–2013 Russian protests, he refused to censor VK accounts used by anti-Putin activists.[20] Durov said that in 2014, he refused to comply with the FSB request to hand over personal data of Ukrainian protesters and opposition leaders during Euromaidan, "because it would have meant a betrayal of our Ukrainian users. After that, I was fired from the company I founded and was forced to leave Russia. I lost my company and my home, but would do it again – without hesitation."[20] Durov also refused to hand over data on Alexei Navalny's VK page.[84]
In 2024, Durov said that Telegram should remain a "neutral platform" and not "a player in geopolitics".[85]
Accolades
Durov has been described as the Mark Zuckerberg of Russia for founding the social networking site VK, which is similar to Facebook.[77][86][87] In August 2014, Durov was named by the Nordic Business Forum as the most promising leader under 30 in Northern Europe.[88] In 2017, he was chosen by the WEF Young Global Leaders to join their organization, representing Finland.[89][90]
On 21 June 2018, the Union of Kazakhstan's Journalists bestowed an award on Durov "for his principled position against censorship and the state's interference into citizens' free online correspondence".[91] In 2018, Fortune magazine included Durov in their "40 Under 40" list, an annual ranking of the most influential young people in business.[92]
In February 2023, Durov was named the most powerful entrepreneur in Dubai by Arabian Business.[9]
^"Туляков Семен Петрович". Электронный банк документов «Подвиг народа в Великой Отечественной войне 1941–1945 гг.». Archived from the original on 15 March 2012. Retrieved 25 May 2016.
^Дуров Валерий Семёнович (in Russian). Филологический факультет СПбГУ. Archived from the original on 25 December 2012. Retrieved 22 December 2012.
^Friedrichsen, Mike; Mühl-Benninghaus, Wolfgang (2013). Handbook of Social Media Management: Value Chain and Business Models in Changing Media Markets. Berlin: Springer Science & Business Media. p. 406. ISBN978-3-642-28896-8.
^Michael S. Sackheim, Nathan A. Howell, James B. Biery, Andrew P. Blake, Dominique Gallego, Teresa Wilton Harmon, James C. Munsell, David E Teitelbaum, Lilya Tessler, Allison Ross Stromberg, Daniel Engoren and Kristin S. Teager (2 September 2021). "The Virtual Currency Regulation Review: USA". The Law Reviews. Archived from the original on 15 March 2022. Retrieved 14 April 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
^"Telegram's Top Executive Pavel Durov Reportedly Detained in France". The New York Times. 26 August 2024. Archived from the original on 25 August 2024. Retrieved 26 August 2024. On his personal Telegram channel, [Durov] muses about various topics, including his ascetic lifestyle, the countries he travels to and, more recently, how as a sperm donor he now has more than 100 biological children.
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