The founder of the instant messaging app Telegram said he plans to leave his multibillion-dollar fortune to the more than 100 children he has fathered either naturally or through sperm donations.
Pavel Durov, in an interview published Thursday with French political magazine Le Point, said he does not differentiate between the six children he fathered naturally in three relationships and the dozens of others he fathered by sperm donations.
“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,” he told the outlet.
“The clinic, where I started donating sperm 15 years ago to help a friend, told me that more than 100 babies had been conceived this way in 12 countries,” Durov added.
Bloomberg estimates Durov is worth about $13.9 billion, but the tech leader says this is “only a theoretical estimate of what Telegram could be worth.”
“Since I’m not selling Telegram, it doesn’t matter. I don’t have this money in a bank account. My liquid assets are much lower — and they don’t come from Telegram: They come from my investment in bitcoin in 2013,” Durov told Le Point.
Durov, 40, said he recently wrote his will and decided his children will not have access to his fortune until 30 years later.
“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,” Durov said.
When pressed over why he wrote his will now, Durov said his work “involves risks.”
“Defending freedoms earns you many enemies, including within powerful states. I want to protect my children, but also the company I created, Telegram. I want Telegram to forever remain faithful to the values I defend,” he said.
It comes months after Durov was detained and indicted by French authorities after allegedly refusing to work with authorities investigating criminal acts on the messaging app.
Durov, a dual citizen of France and Russia, faced a slew of charges, alleging complicity in the distribution of child sexual abuse materials, illicit transactions, money laundering.
Durov called the case “absurd,” telling Le Point, “Just because criminals use our messaging service among many others doesn’t make those who run it criminals.”
“Nothing has ever been proven showing that I am, even for a second, guilty of anything,” Durov said.
Telegram pushed back against Durov’s arrest at the time, maintaining it abides by the European Union’s laws and its moderation is “within industry standards and constantly improving.”
Telegram offers users the option to send messages with end-to-end encryption, along with large group chats with as many as 200,000 users.
Following Durov’s arrest, Telegram said it will now hand over the data of users who violate their rules when requested by authorities
