What is Pavel Durov’s net worth?
Introduction
Pavel Durov, once dubbed the Russian Mark Zuckerberg, is the founder and CEO of the encrypted messaging app Telegram.
He only wears black, like the character Neo in the Matrix franchise.
Biography
He was born on October 10, 1984, in Leningrad.
At age 4, Pavel and his family moved to Turin, Italy, where his dad (Valery Durov) taught for some years.
His older brother, Nikolai, won competitions in mathematics and computer science.
He learned programming from his brother.
Durov studied languages at the Academic Gymnasium at St. Petersburg State University.
VKontakte
Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov delivers his keynote conference during day two of the Mobile World Congress at the Fira Gran Via complex in Barcelona, Spain on February 23, 2016 – @Getty
In 2006, he founded the social media company VKontakte –literal translation “in touch” — (also known as VK) after graduating from St. Petersburg University.
At the start, VKontakte was a platform for students to share material from classes they had missed.
Durov had his inspiration to create VK from Facebook. “Some things like the layout of the early VKontakte was very influenced by Facebook,” he revealed.
About one year later, the user base reached 1 million and 10 million the following year.
In 2012, Pavel threw banknotes of over one hundred euros from his office
Over time, he lost control of the company to investors. As such, in early 2014, he sold his share (12%) in the company to Ivan Tavrin, the CEO of Megafon.
In April 2014, Durov announced that he stepped down as the head of VK. “I resign as Acting Director General of VKontakte,” he wrote on social media.
Two days later, Pavel posted on VK: “To those who thought I was actually resigning, happy April Fool’s.”
However, in the same month, Durov was fired as CEO of VKontakte.
Pavel Durov, CEO and co-founder of Telegram speaks onstage with moderator Mike Butcher during day one of TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2015 – @Getty
“I’m likely to start building a mobile social network this year,” he said in an interview.
In 2014, he emigrated from Russia with several ex-workers from VK. Durov clarified: “We are choosing a new home, a country that will allow us to implement new projects.”
He became a citizen of Saint Kitts and Nevis (a state in the Caribbean Sea) in 2014.
Telegram
He founded Telegram in 2013
His younger brother designed the encryption. The company is offering $200K to anyone who can crack it. Yes, the encryption is really that good.
Telegram became incredibly popular and grew to over 900 million users. It competes with Facebook’s WhatsApp.
The number of users is growing organically — about 2.5 million register daily.
For instance, in February 2014, when WhatsApp went down for several hours, 5 million people signed up for Telegram.
Moves to Dubai
@Getty
In 2017, he moved to Dubai. Durov also relocated Telegram’s operations to an office in Dubai’s Media City.
In 2018, Pavel raised $1.7 billion from investors to create the Telegram Open Network (TON), a blockchain system with a store for digital and physical goods, services, and apps.
In August 2021. he was naturalized as a French citizen. Earlier that year, he obtained citizenship in the UAE.
In 2023, Durov moved to a luxury five-bedroom villa in Jumeirah Islands — one of Dubai’s most prestigious communities.
In May 2024, Pantera Capital invested in the TON blockchain. Pantera Capital has more than $5 billion worth of assets under management.
At the time of writing, TON is the 9th largest cryptocurrency.
In August 2024, Durov was arrested at the Bourget airport outside Paris.
Wife/Girlfriend
Pavel Durov is not married and never was. In the past, Durov was romantically linked with model Alena Shiskova. Not much is known about Durov’s current girlfriend.
Pavel Durov – Net Worth
So, how much is Pavel Durov worth?
Durov earned most of his wealth from co-founding VK and founding Telegram.
Telegram only has about 50 full-time employees. He is the head of the company and the only project manager.
Recently, he said to have rejected an investment of $30 billion in Telegram. “We want to remain independent,” Durov said.
In June 2022, Telegram launched the Premium subscription program. This allows users to unlock additional features, including:
- reactions;
- faster downloads;
- exclusive stickers;
- 4 GB file uploads.
“The main reason why we started to monetise is because we wanted to remain independent,” the Telegram owner stated in an interview with Financial Times.
In 2014, he sold his stake in VK for $300 million.
Pavel claims he doesn’t own any houses, cars, yachts, or private jets.
“For me, it was never about money right, so I have a few hundred million dollars in my bank account or Bitcoin since 10 years ago,” Durov told Tucker Carlson in an interview in 2024. He added: “I don’t do anything with it. I don’t own any like real estate, jets, or yachts.”
Durov is the richest expat in the United Arab Emirates. He is shelling out about $1 million on annual rent in Dubay, where he moved since Dubai has no income tax nor capital gains taxes.
Therefore, Pavel Durov has an estimated net worth of $16 billion.
In 2018, he had a net worth of $1.7 billion.
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I am Bulgarea Candin Stefan, and I founded FamousPeopleToday.com in 2018. I’m using my bachelor’s degree in economics and 9 years of experience in blogging to guide millions of people through the incredibly complex world of celebrity net worths.