The billionaire founder of the encrypted messaging app Telegram, Pavel Durov, is one of the most mysterious billionaires in the world. He was arrested on Saturday, August 24 at Le Bourget airport.
Durov has always been known for his freedom of thought and his desire for complete independence, writes Le Figaro. The French newspaper has compiled five facts worth knowing about Durov.
Durov, born in Russia, is the founder and owner of Telegram, a platform that competes with other social networks such as WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok or WeChat. The platform aims to exceed one billion monthly active users within a year.
Moreover, this social network is one of the key ones in the territory of the former CIS and has become an operational source of information about Russia’s war against Ukraine; it even includes channels of officials from both Russia and Ukraine. Some analysts call the application a “virtual battlefield.”
The second fact about Pavel Durov concerns the fact that the billionaire puts his personal freedom before everything else. After being pressured to close VKontakte or hand it over to pro-government companies in Russia, Durov went abroad in 2014 and sold the social network.
Russian and French media have since claimed that Durov became a French citizen in 2021.
Durov came up with the idea of launching the encrypted messaging service (Telegram) after facing strong pressure from the Russian authorities. Before settling in Dubai in 2017, he lived in Berlin, London, Singapore and San Francisco.
Pavel Durov’s fortune is estimated at $15.5 billion. But the billionaire insists that apart from money or bitcoins, he does not own any significant assets, such as real estate, planes or yachts. The reason is the desire to “be free.”
It’s hard to believe, but Pavel Durov is against the tech giants, considering Apple and Google not only two rivals, but, above all, the two biggest threats to freedom of expression.
“These two platforms can censor everything you can read and all the information you can access on your smartphone,” he told the US press in April.
Earlier, Kursor reported that Pavel Durov’s arrest was extended for another 48 hours. Thus, the court increased Pavel Durov’s stay in custody to 96 hours. During this time, the businessman must be charged or released.
