Pavel Durov likes to showcase his ascetic lifestyle. When questioned about his income while in police custody in France at the end of August, the co-founder of the Telegram messaging service – who promotes a life without coffee, alcohol, meat, dairy products and medication, enhanced by morning ice baths and meditations in the desert – told investigators he collected just "1 Emirati dirham" a year. That's about $0.27. It left his interlocutors puzzled.
While he pays himself almost nothing, Telegram's CEO is a multi-billionaire. In addition to the €300 million he received in 2014 from the sale of his shares in the Russian social media network VKontakte, Durov owns the entire share capital of Telegram, valued by several investment funds at nearly $30 billion, according to what Durov told the Financial Times, in March. In the same interview, he conceded that his messaging service, for which an IPO was planned within a year, was not yet profitable. This further fuels the uncertainty surrounding his personal financial situation, estimated at between $9 billion and $15.5 billion, depending on the source.
The extent of his wealth – and, above all, the funds he is able to quickly mobilize – is a key issue for the courts. At the end of his police custody on August 28, the amount of his bail had to be set, one that would be sufficient to ensure that Durov, who holds French, Russian and Emirati passports, would not flee French territory. The billionaire had just been served with an indictment for 12 offenses linked to Telegram's virtual failure to cooperate with the judicial authorities in cases of fraud and the dissemination of child pornography images.
According to Le Monde's information, the Paris prosecutor's office had requested that bail be set at €20 million, accompanied by the usual judicial control measures, such as regular check-ins at police stations, the obligation to remain in France and to declare any address changes. Eventually, the judge reduced the amount to €5 million. In a rare interview with American conservative host Tucker Carlson in April, Durov had explained that he owned no real estate, and kept his personal fortune in several banks and in cryptocurrencies.
Despite the vagueness of his fortune, the €5 million bond set seems very low given the invoices and testimonies gathered by Le Monde. In 2023, Durov had bid a higher amount – around €8.5 million – in an attempt to obtain a personalized license plate at a charity auction in Dubai, where he has mainly lived since 2019. He did not win the plate. His bid was beaten by an anonymous buyer.
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