Telegram’s Durov to split $17B fortune among 100 – Business News
Telegram founder Pavel Durov mentioned he desires to go away his practically $20 billion fortune to 100 youngsters he’s fathered by way of sperm donations.
The eccentric tech founder has a historical past of tangling with the Kremlin over free speech and was charged by French officers final yr for allegedly permitting intercourse abuse and drug trafficking crimes to run rampant on his encrypted messaging app. He has denied these costs.
The billionaire has written a will that splits his $17.1 billion fortune, in accordance to Forbes, among his six youngsters with three companions, in addition to 100 youngsters throughout 12 international locations he fathered by way of sperm donations stretching back 15 years, Durov instructed France’s Le Point magazine on Thursday.
Pavel Durov and Irina Bolgar with their youngsters. @missbolgar/Instagram
“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,” he instructed Le Point.
“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, 40, mentioned he doesn’t need his youngsters to have entry to his fortune for 30 years.
“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 instructed the magazine.
Durov faces accusations from the mom of three of his youngsters that he withheld financial assist, led a secret double life and struck their then-three-year-old son so arduous it despatched him “across the room,” in accordance to two prison complaints filed in 2023 and 2024.
He has a considerably weird social media presence, posting a picture of himself shirtless in a barn with child goats earlier this yr to want Telegram customers a completely satisfied Easter.
Years earlier, in a 2017 Instagram post that went viral, he mocked Russian President Vladimir Putin for virtually the identical factor – calling on customers to post images of themselves bare-chested within the “Putin Shirtless Challenge.”
Telegram founder Pavel Durov posted a picture of himself shirtless to want customers a completely satisfied Easter. @durov/Instagram
Durov had been the goal of Russian state blacklisting after he refused to shut down activists on VKontakte, a platform he created often known as the Russian model of Facebook, together with a group led by the late opposition chief Alexei Navalny.
Durov reportedly fled the nation after he was concerned in a visitors accident that left a police officer barely injured. Around the identical time, a non-public (*100*) firm linked to the Kremlin purchased a hefty stake in VK and pushed out the founding companions who backed Durov, in accordance to The Moscow Times.
In March, Durov mentioned he had returned to his home in Dubai after Paris officers had arrested him over the summer time and banned him from leaving the nation.
His encrypted messaging app Telegram, which boasts more than 1 billion lively customers, has change into an indispensable communication device during the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
Pavel Durov based the encrypted messaging app Telegram. REUTERS
Government officers have used the app to ship out air raid warnings and residents have documented conflict horrors firsthand.
But the app has come below fire for additionally permitting extremist teams just like the Islamic State, white nationalists and conspiracy theorists to use the platform.
