Telegram Messenger Founder Pavel Durov
Forbes Estimates His Fortune at 25 Trillion Won
Pavel Durov, the founder of the Telegram messenger, is drawing attention. He has openly stated that, through sperm donation, he has fathered over 100 children in 12 countries around the world.
On December 23, Yonhap News reported, citing The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) in the United States, on the news about Durov's children. In a post on Telegram in July last year, Durov revealed that he began donating sperm around 2010, and that, as a result of these donations, he now has more than 100 children in at least 12 countries.
Officially, he is known to have six children with three women. Although he stopped donating sperm several years ago, his frozen sperm is still stored at a fertility clinic in Moscow.
Durov has described his sperm donation as an effort to alleviate the shortage of healthy sperm and to encourage other men to do the same.
The clinic where Durov's sperm is stored advertises that "in vitro fertilization (IVF) using the sperm of Pavel Durov, a famous entrepreneur and successful businessman, is available free of charge." A doctor who previously worked at the clinic told the WSJ that the women who came to receive Durov's sperm "were all very attractive, highly educated, and in good health," and that "they had to be unmarried to avoid legal issues."
In June last year, Durov stated in an interview with a French weekly magazine that he would leave his inheritance equally to his biological children. In October, he also appeared on the podcast of American scientist Lex Fridman and said, "If it can be proven that someone shares my DNA, they may be eligible to receive a portion of my inheritance, perhaps 30 years after I pass away."
Pavel Durov caused controversy last October by entering a lake within a national park in Kazakhstan, an area where swimming is prohibited. TCA capture Yonhap News Photo
According to Forbes, his fortune is estimated at 17 billion dollars (25 trillion won), most of which is based on the value of Telegram. Regarding Durov's extensive sperm donation, the WSJ analyzed it as an attempt to expand the boundaries of reproductive ethics and technology.
However, the report also pointed out that it overlooked issues such as the potential identity confusion among children born from indiscriminate sperm donation, as well as various other problems that could arise among them. Durov's actions align with the desires of some to have children with specific traits through genetic testing and gene editing, which could lead to the birth of a second, third, or even fourth Durov.
Meanwhile, last October, Durov wrote on X (formerly Twitter), "While we sleep, a dark and dystopian world is rapidly approaching," adding, "We have entered a path of moral, intellectual, economic, and ultimately biological self-destruction."
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