2024-08-28 01:22:29
Billionaire founder of encrypted messaging app Telegram Pavel Durov is one of the world’s most mysterious billionaires. He was detained at Le Bourget airport on Saturday, August 24.
Durov has always stood out for his freethinking and desire for complete independence, writes Le Figaro. The French newspaper has collected five facts worth knowing about Durov.
Durov, who was born in Russia, is the founder and owner of Telegram. The platform competes with other social networks such as WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok or WeChat. The platform aims to exceed 1 billion monthly active users within a year.
In addition, 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 the war of Russia 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 above all else. After he was required to close VKontakte or hand it over to pro-government companies in Russia, Durov went abroad in 2014 and sold the social network.
Since then, Russian and French media have claimed that Durov became a French citizen in 2021.
Durov came up with the idea to launch the encrypted messaging service (Telegram) after facing intense 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 claims 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, two of the biggest threats to freedom of speech.
“These two platforms can censor everything you can read and everything you can access on your smartphone,” he told the American 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 either be charged or released.