Who Is Pavel Durov? The Telegram CEO Arrested in France

Who Is Pavel Durov? The Telegram CEO Arrested in France

Local media in France have reported that Pavel Durov, the billionaire founder and CEO of Telegram, was arrested on Saturday night at Bourget Airport in the vicinity of Paris.

Prosecutors link this with an ongoing investigation of the company’s content moderation, saying that the lack of proper control has permitted large-scale criminal activities on the messaging platform.

So far, Telegram has not commented, though the French Interior Ministry and police have already reacted to the agency, Reuters.

Meanwhile, the Foreign Ministry of the Russian Federation has been making tries to elucidate what is happening and hinted about whether Western nongovernmental organizations were going to make a stand for the release of Durov, now in detention.

On Pavel Durov and Telegram:

Pavel Durov, 39, Russian-born entrepreneur, best known to have developed Telegram — a popular messaging application competing with big social media platforms, including WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok, and WeChat — is poised to reach one billion active users in the coming year.

Power Telegrams: T​ he app wields a strong influence in Russia, Ukraine, and other former Soviet republics. it has turned itself into a critical tool through which information on Russia’s war on Ukraine with the officials in Moscow and Kyiv themselves actively using the platform. ANALYSTS describe ​Telegram a “virtual battlefield” for the conflict.

Background: Durov, whose net worth reaches $15.5 billion according to Forbes, left Russia in 2014 after firm opposition to requests for support in closing opposition communities on VKontakte, a social network he once founded but then sold. In 2021, he became a citizen of France, while in 2017, he moved to Dubai.

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Personal Philosophy: In an interview with US journalist Tucker Carlson in April, Durov said he valued freedom above riches and preferred not to have too many assets, such as real estate or jets or yachts, hanging around his neck.

That is what took him out of the country and sent him searching for a new base for his company. As Durov goes through this current legal hurdle, the world takes a closer scrutiny on what will be the eventual outcome and if, for some reason, it would affect the manner in which Telegram operates and Durov’s standing.