Telegram Founder Pledges to Leave $17 Billion Fortune to All 106 of His Children

Pavel Durov (Image Source: @Getty Images

The founder of instant messaging app Telegram, Pavel Durov, says the more than 100 children he has fathered will share his estimated $13.9bn (£10.3bn) fortune.

Pavel Durov, 40, told the French outlet Le Point in an interview about his decision to allocate his fortune. He's worth about $17.1 billion, per Forbes.

Father to six children via natural conception, Durov said he has also been a sperm donor for 100-plus kids in 12 countries.

The billionaire first became a sperm donor to "help a friend," he said, but otherwise it was anonymous.

Pavel Durov, CEO and co-founder of Telegram messaging app, arrives at the Paris courthouse for a hearing, in Paris on December 6, 2024. Pavel Durov was arrested in France in August 2024, charged with publishing illegal content on the application and has to remain in France and report to police twice a week during the investigation..

Durov decided to allocate his estate now because his "work involves risks, Defending freedoms earns you many enemies, including within powerful states," he said — an apparent reference to the legal issues he has faced over Telegram.

"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 said. "They are all my children and will all have the same rights!"

Durov said that his children will not have access to their inheritances until after his death, until 30 years from the day he gave the interview to Le Point, or June 19, 2055.

"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 said.

The Telegram messaging app, founded in 2013, is popular for its privacy and encryption options which has over a billion monthly active users but that has also created problems with law enforcement.

French authorities charged Pavel in August 2024 and accused him of allegedly being complicit in running a platform in which illegal activity — such as child sex abuse material, drug trade, fraud etc — could thrive.

The status of that case is not clear, but Durov told Le Point: "Nothing has ever been proven showing that I am, even for a second, guilty of anything."

Telegram has also said it uses various content moderation techniques to weed out illicit behavior, NBC News reported.