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Throughout a uncommon interview with the Monetary Occasions in February, Telegram’s chief govt Pavel Durov boasted of getting a “good job, good life”.
Sitting in his gleaming workplace on the thirty fifth ground of a Dubai skyscraper, the Russian-born billionaire defined the which means behind his messaging app’s brand — a white paper aeroplane in opposition to a blue background. “For me, it symbolises a free entity that may transfer in three dimensions and isn’t restricted by boundaries or geographic constraints,” he stated.
Six months later, Durov’s charmed life has been upended and his personal existence as a free entity is at stake. The elusive entrepreneur is going through a potential jail sentence in France following his arrest at an airport on Saturday. He’s accused of failing to deal with criminality on Telegram — together with baby pornography, drug peddling and fraud — and refusing to co-operate with police information requests. A French and Emirati citizen, he has been launched from custody however barred from leaving the nation.
For greater than a decade, Durov has offered his imaginative and prescient of Telegram as a web based protected haven that’s technologically and ideologically unassailable. He has promoted himself as an anti-establishment tech genius whose libertarian streak was borne of his expertise of oppression in his native Russia.
Each gambits had been apparently profitable. The app says it’s nearing 1bn customers whereas Durov is a nomadic multi-billionaire. However as his travails show, idealism on the expense of security doesn’t impress governments. His arrest might mark the tip of an period wherein tech leaders have loved comparatively little duty for the content material on their platforms. Formidable IPO plans could also be thwarted.
How will Durov navigate his predicament? Ought to he stand his floor, he might be elevated by some as a free speech martyr. However he might face a prolonged jail sentence. “He’s at all times been placed on a pedestal and may need felt invincible,” says Axel Neff, an estranged co-founder and former chief info officer of Telegram. That’s now not the case. “But when he alters his tune,” Neff provides, “then he’s not Pavel Durov”.
Born in St Petersburg in 1984 to a Ukrainian mom and Russian father, Durov constructed the nation’s equal to Fb, VKontakte, in his 20s — rising to fame because the “Mark Zuckerberg of Russia”. In his telling, he was compelled to depart the corporate — and Russia itself — in 2014 after refusing calls for from Moscow to share the info of Ukrainian opposition customers.
A yr earlier, Durov co-founded Telegram together with his brother Nikolai. He claims the pair did so to speak safely “as a result of again then there was no safe messaging app”. Edward Snowden’s revelations of mass surveillance by US intelligence then impressed him to share the expertise publicly, he told the FT. “I imagine within the competitors of concepts . . . In any other case we will shortly degrade into authoritarianism,” he stated.
Since then, the app has grow to be an important communication device for dissidents residing in repressive regimes, similar to Belarus and Iran. However it is usually dwelling to the darkest underbelly of the web, together with baby sexual abuse materials and terrorism.
Softly spoken and at all times sporting black, Durov has been unapologetic within the face of scrutiny, hitting again with accusations of his personal. In an interview with right-wing pundit Tucker Carlson earlier this yr, he claimed that the FBI had tried to rent one among his staffers to get entry to consumer information within the app.
For all of the self-mythologising, a lot of Durov’s life continues to be shrouded in thriller. Those that know him describe him as a visionary but additionally a grasp of spin. “He views himself as a champion of the individuals, however on the similar time he cares about his self-image,” says Neff. “He’s a mixture of vainness and the Aristocracy mixed collectively.”
In his FT interview, Durov elaborated on his punishing well being regime. After eight hours of tracked sleep, he begins the day “with out exception” with 200 push-ups, 100 sit-ups and an ice tub. He doesn’t drink, smoke, eat sugar or meat, and saves time for meditation.
In July he wrote on Telegram that he has greater than 100 organic kids by way of nameless sperm donation throughout 12 nations, including he plans to “open-source” his DNA so they might discover one another extra simply. His Instagram account is dominated by shirtless photographs with enigmatic captions.
There are additionally darker episodes: he was investigated for a hit-and-run in Russia in 2013, which he denied, and attracted US regulatory scrutiny for his cryptocurrency endeavours. A case in opposition to Durov for violence in opposition to his kids has been filed by his former accomplice in Switzerland, in response to paperwork seen by the FT.
Mystique has additionally created a vacuum for political hypothesis: specifically that he nonetheless has secret ties to Russia. Current experiences in Russian impartial media declare he has visited greater than 50 occasions since he fled.
Durov dismissed experiences of such hyperlinks as “conspiracy theories” and “bias”. However he refused to take sides on the Russia-Ukraine battle or touch upon Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, saying “Let’s not go there”. His arrest has sparked a diplomatic firestorm between Paris and Moscow, with the latter calling for his launch.
Durov’s neutrality has in the end damage his bid to distance himself from Russia, says Aleksandra Urman, a social media professional on the College of Zurich. “Authoritarian, or pro-democratic. He nonetheless chooses nothing.”
