Pavel Durov, the founder and CEO of messaging service Telegram, has more than a hundred children. The Russian billionaire plans to divide his inheritance among all those children, he says in an interview with the French magazine Le Point.
Durov says in the interview that he is the official father of six children with three different partners. In addition, he started sperm donation fifteen years ago, resulting in him fathering more than a hundred babies.
“I want to emphasize that I make no distinction between my children,” says the forty-year-old Durov. “They are all my children and they will all have the same rights.” The Telegram CEO announced that he will divide his multi-billion dollar fortune among all his children.
That means each of them can expect a substantial amount. According to the leading billionaires list by news agency Bloomberg, his fortune currently amounts to 13.9 billion dollars (over 12 billion euros). Divided by a hundred, that would amount to 139 million dollars per child.
Durov was arrested last year at the French airport Le Bourget, just outside Paris. The French authorities suspect him of complicity in the distribution of, among other things, child pornography and drug trafficking.
In the interview with Le Point, Durov calls the allegations “absurd”. He did previously acknowledge that criminals misuse Telegram. “Just because criminals use our messaging service, like many others, does not mean it is managed by criminals,” he tells the French magazine.