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What does it mean to be someone’s child? If you ask Telegram CEO Pavel Durov, the answer encompasses more than just the six “official” children he has with three different women. In fact, it includes over 100 kids around the world.
“How is this possible for a guy who has never been married and prefers to live alone?” Durov pondered rhetorically on his Telegram channel in 2024.
The answer is straightforward: through sperm donation. For the past 15 years, Durov has frequently donated sperm, believing it to be his “civic duty.” However, unlike many others, Durov considers all the children conceived using his sperm to be his own, even though he’s not involved in their lives and has no idea who they are.
Notably, Durov considers that all his children share the same rights.
Inheritance. Durov expressed his views on family in an interview with Le Point, revealing that he had recently written his will. This makes it crucial to understand how many children the Telegram CEO has, especially given his estimated fortune of around $14 billion.
“I want to specify that I make no difference between my children: there are those who were conceived naturally and those who come from my sperm donations. They are all my children and will all have the same rights,” Durov said.
One sperm donation. It’s no surprise that Durov has so many children. He shared the origins of this story in 2024, explaining how it all started 15 years ago when a friend asked him for a sperm donation.
“I laughed my ass off before realizing [my friend] was dead serious,” Durov shared on Telegram.
His friend and his wife were facing fertility issues and needed help in starting a family. Durov agreed to help, but the story didn’t end there.
More than 100 children. “I was just told that I have over 100 biological kids,” Durov said in 2024. “[When I made my first donation], the boss of the clinic told me that ‘high quality donor material’ was in short supply and that it was my civic duty to donate more sperm to anonymously help more couples,” he added.
According to Durov, his donations over the years have assisted more than 100 couples in 12 countries. He also said that at least one clinic still has his sperm frozen and available for anonymous donation.
From right to left, Pavel Durov and Jakob Burda in 2016.
Children: an obsession among billionaires. Durov’s commitment to helping others have children isn’t unusual among wealthy individuals. Recently, billionaires such as Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen, and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel have raised concerns about the “risks” that low birth rates pose to humanity.
Musk has classified the declining birth rate as “a much bigger risk to civilization than global warming.” He seems committed to having as many children as possible, currently having at least 14 children with four different women, with the potential for more.
Meanwhile, Andreessen says that the planet is being “dramatically underpopulated.” He envisions a future with 50 billion people on Earth, despite the current population of 8.2 billion. When questioned about poverty, he insists that markets will take care of funding social welfare programs.
While Durov may not be as vocal on this issue as Musk and Andreessen, he clearly takes it seriously. In fact, in 2024, he funded fertility treatments costing around $5,000 for women in Russia who agreed to use his sperm.
Distributing the inheritance. What about Durov’s $14 billion inheritance? Unfortunately, even if you find out that he played a role in your conception, you’ll have to wait a long time before seeing any of his money. Specifically, you’ll have to wait three decades.
“I want [my children] 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 told LePoint.
How can you tell if you’re Durov’s kid? Given that Durov made his sperm donations anonymously, you might wonder how to determine if you’re his child. Durov has also considered this.
“Now I plan to open source my DNA so that my biological children can find each other more easily,” he said in 2024. “Of course, there are risks, but I don’t regret having been a donor.”
Images | TechCrunch | Hubert Burda Media
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