Meet Pavel Durov, the tech billionaire who founded Telegram

Become an Insider and start reading now. Have an account? . 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. 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. 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...

Preview: ~500 words