Telegram founder Pavel Durov says all his 100+ children will receive share of his estate
Telegram CEO Pavel Durov said he didn't want his children to fight over his estate. (Thomas Samson/AFP/Getty Images via CNN Newsource)
Pavel Durov, the founder and CEO of instant messaging app Telegram, plans to leave his fortune to the more than 100 children he has fathered.
The Russian-born tech tycoon has revealed that his estate will be split between his six children from relationships and the scores of others whom he fathered through sperm donation.
In a wide-ranging interview published Thursday in French political magazine Le Point, 40-year-old Durov revealed that he does not differentiate between his legal children with three different women and those conceived with the sperm he donated.
'They are all my children and will all have the same rights! I don't want them to tear each other apart after my death,' he said, after revealing that he recently wrote his will.
Durov revealed the number of children he has fathered on his social media last year. He said a doctor told him that it was his 'civic duty' to donate his 'high quality donor material,' which he did over the course of 15 years.
According to Bloomberg, Durov is worth an estimated US$13.9 billion, but he dismissed such estimates as 'theoretical,' telling Le Point: 'Since I'm not selling Telegram, it doesn't matter. I don't have this money in a bank account. My liquid assets are much lower – and they don't come from Telegram: they come from my investment in bitcoin in 2013.'
Regardless, his children will have a long wait for their inheritance. He said: 'I decided that my children would not have access to my fortune until a period of 30 years has elapsed, starting from today. I want them 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. 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.'
When asked why he has written his will now, Durov, who lives in Dubai, said: 'My work involves risks – defending freedoms earns you many enemies, including within powerful states. I want to protect my children, but also the company I created, Telegram. I want Telegram to forever remain faithful to the values I defend.'
Telegram, which has more than a billion monthly users, is known for its high-level encryption and limited oversight on what its users post.
Last year, Durov was arrested in Paris on charges relating to a host of crimes, including allegations that his platform was complicit in aiding money launderers, drug traffickers and people spreading child pornography.
Durov, who is Telegram's sole shareholder, has denied the charges, which he described as 'absurd.'
'Just because criminals use our messaging service among many others doesn't make those who run it criminals,' he told the French magazine.
Lianne Kolirin, CNN
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CTV News
3 hours ago
- CTV News
Telegram founder Pavel Durov says all his 100+ children will receive share of his estate
Telegram CEO Pavel Durov said he didn't want his children to fight over his estate. (Thomas Samson/AFP/Getty Images via CNN Newsource) Pavel Durov, the founder and CEO of instant messaging app Telegram, plans to leave his fortune to the more than 100 children he has fathered. The Russian-born tech tycoon has revealed that his estate will be split between his six children from relationships and the scores of others whom he fathered through sperm donation. In a wide-ranging interview published Thursday in French political magazine Le Point, 40-year-old Durov revealed that he does not differentiate between his legal children with three different women and those conceived with the sperm he donated. 'They are all my children and will all have the same rights! I don't want them to tear each other apart after my death,' he said, after revealing that he recently wrote his will. Durov revealed the number of children he has fathered on his social media last year. He said a doctor told him that it was his 'civic duty' to donate his 'high quality donor material,' which he did over the course of 15 years. According to Bloomberg, Durov is worth an estimated US$13.9 billion, but he dismissed such estimates as 'theoretical,' telling Le Point: 'Since I'm not selling Telegram, it doesn't matter. I don't have this money in a bank account. My liquid assets are much lower – and they don't come from Telegram: they come from my investment in bitcoin in 2013.' Regardless, his children will have a long wait for their inheritance. He said: 'I decided that my children would not have access to my fortune until a period of 30 years has elapsed, starting from today. I want them 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. 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.' When asked why he has written his will now, Durov, who lives in Dubai, said: 'My work involves risks – defending freedoms earns you many enemies, including within powerful states. I want to protect my children, but also the company I created, Telegram. I want Telegram to forever remain faithful to the values I defend.' Telegram, which has more than a billion monthly users, is known for its high-level encryption and limited oversight on what its users post. Last year, Durov was arrested in Paris on charges relating to a host of crimes, including allegations that his platform was complicit in aiding money launderers, drug traffickers and people spreading child pornography. Durov, who is Telegram's sole shareholder, has denied the charges, which he described as 'absurd.' 'Just because criminals use our messaging service among many others doesn't make those who run it criminals,' he told the French magazine. Lianne Kolirin, CNN
CTV News
4 hours ago
- CTV News
Music streaming service Deezer adds AI song tags in fight against fraud
The music streaming services Deezer's logo is pictured at the company headquarters, in Paris, France, Monday, Nov. 9, 2015. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus) LONDON — Music streaming service Deezer said Friday that it will start flagging albums with AI-generated songs, part of its fight against streaming fraudsters. Deezer, based in Paris, is grappling with a surge in music on its platform created using artificial intelligence tools it says are being wielded to earn royalties fraudulently. The app will display an on-screen label warning about 'AI-generated content' and notify listeners that some tracks on an album were created with song generators. Deezer is a small player in music streaming, which is dominated by Spotify, Amazon and Apple, but the company said AI-generated music is an 'industry-wide issue.' It's committed to 'safeguarding the rights of artists and songwriters at a time where copyright law is being put into question in favor of training AI models,' CEO Alexis Lanternier said in a press release. Deezer's move underscores the disruption caused by generative AI systems, which are trained on the contents of the internet including text, images and audio available online. AI companies are facing a slew of lawsuits challenging their practice of scraping the web for such training data without paying for it. According to an AI song detection tool that Deezer rolled out this year, 18% of songs uploaded to its platform each day, or about 20,000 tracks, are now completely AI generated. Just three months earlier, that number was 10%, Lanternier said in a recent interview. AI has many benefits but it also 'creates a lot of questions' for the music industry, Lanternier told The Associated Press. Using AI to make music is fine as long as there's an artist behind it but the problem arises when anyone, or even a bot, can use it to make music, he said. Music fraudsters 'create tons of songs. They upload, they try to get on playlists or recommendations, and as a result they gather royalties,' he said. Musicians can't upload music directly to Deezer or rival platforms like Spotify or Apple Music. Music labels or digital distribution platforms can do it for artists they have contracts with, while anyone else can use a 'self service' distribution company. Fully AI-generated music still accounts for only about 0.5% of total streams on Deezer. But the company said it's 'evident' that fraud is 'the primary purpose' for these songs because it suspects that as many as seven in 10 listens of an AI song are done by streaming 'farms' or bots, instead of humans. Any AI songs used for 'stream manipulation' will be cut off from royalty payments, Deezer said. AI has been a hot topic in the music industry, with debates swirling around its creative possibilities as well as concerns about its legality. Two of the most popular AI song generators, Suno and Udio, are being sued by record companies for copyright infringement, and face allegations they exploited recorded works of artists from Chuck Berry to Mariah Carey. Gema, a German royalty-collection group, is suing Suno in a similar case filed in Munich, accusing the service of generating songs that are 'confusingly similar' to original versions by artists it represents, including 'Forever Young' by Alphaville, 'Daddy Cool' by Boney M and Lou Bega's 'Mambo No. 5.' Major record labels are reportedly negotiating with Suno and Udio for compensation, according to news reports earlier this month. To detect songs for tagging, Lanternier says Deezer uses the same generators used to create songs to analyze their output. 'We identify patterns because the song creates such a complex signal. There is lots of information in the song,' Lanternier said. The AI music generators seem to be unable to produce songs without subtle but recognizable patterns, which change constantly. 'So you have to update your tool every day,' Lanternier said. 'So we keep generating songs to learn, to teach our algorithm. So we're fighting AI with AI.' Fraudsters can earn big money through streaming. Lanternier pointed to a criminal case last year in the U.S., which authorities said was the first ever involving artificially inflated music streaming. Prosecutors charged a man with wire fraud conspiracy, accusing him of generating hundreds of thousands of AI songs and using bots to automatically stream them billions of times, earning at least US$10 million. Kelvin Chan, The Associated Press
Globe and Mail
7 hours ago
- Globe and Mail
2 No-Brainer, High-Yield Stocks to Buy With $2,000 Right Now
The S&P 500 index (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) is trading near all-time highs and has a pretty miserly 1.2% or so dividend yield. If you are an income investor, that suggests that you have your work cut out for you right now. But there are great investment options with high yields out there if you take the time to look. Two no-brainer choices today, if you have $2,000 or $20,000 to invest, are Brookfield Renewable (NYSE: BEP)(NYSE: BEPC) and Chevron (NYSE: CVX). Here's what you need to know. Brookfield Renewable is positioned to grow Brookfield Renewable owns a globally diversified portfolio of clean energy assets. On the geographic front, its portfolio spans across North America, South America, Europe, and Asia. On the technology front, the business has exposure to hydroelectric, solar, wind, energy storage, and nuclear power assets. It is as close to a one-stop shop as you can get in the renewable energy space. Where to invest $1,000 right now? Our analyst team just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks to buy right now. Learn More » The interesting thing here, however, is that Brookfield Renewable is not a regulated utility. It largely sells its power under long-term contracts to others, including both companies and utilities. This actually gives it a lot of room to grow as the world increasingly shifts from carbon-based fuels toward cleaner alternatives. For example, it recently inked a deal with Microsoft to provide around 10.5 gigawatts of power that the technology giant will use to support its data center build-out. Basically, Brookfield Renewable can grow as it sees fit without having to kowtow to regulators who may put limits on its investment plans. And this brings up another interesting fact: Brookfield Renewable is run by Brookfield Asset Management (NYSE: BAM). Brookfield Asset Management has an over-100-year history of investing in infrastructure on a global scale. And it plans to increase its clean-energy investments, where Brookfield Renewable is a key source of funding, by around 100% by 2030. Buying Brookfield Renewable lets you partner with Brookfield Asset Management on that growth. There are two ways to buy in here. Brookfield Renewable Partners has a 5.6% yield. Brookfield Renewable Corporation has a 4.6% dividend yield. Both represent the exact same entity and have the exact same dividend payment. The yield difference is because demand for the corporate share class is higher, which makes sense given that large institutional investors are often barred from owning partnerships. Either way you go, Brookfield Renewable appears well positioned to expand its business as the world goes green. And you can collect a fat yield that has been regularly increased if you buy in right now. A $2,000 investment will get you 75 shares of the partnership units and 60 shares of the corporate shares. Chevron is out of favor for two reasons Chevron is a globally diversified, integrated energy giant offering an attractive 4.7% dividend yield. The dividend has been increased for an incredible 38 consecutive years. That's incredible because oil and natural gas prices tend to be highly volatile, which means that Chevron's top and bottom lines tend to be volatile, too. However, Chevron has an ace up its sleeve in the form of a strong balance sheet. A low level of leverage allows it to take on debt during industry downturns so it can continue to support its business and dividend. When oil prices recover, as they always have historically, it pays down debt in preparation for the next downturn. In addition to this rock-solid financial foundation, Chevron's diversified business also helps. With investments in energy production (the upstream), energy transportation (the midstream), and energy processing (the downstream), the peaks and valleys of oil prices get muted to some degree. That said, Chevron is out of favor right now, which has led to the lofty yield. Part of the reason for that is generally weak energy prices. Those low prices are impacting the entire energy sector. But Chevron also has some company-specific issues. First, it is attempting to buy Hess, but the process has turned out to be more complicated than hoped. Second, Chevron has investments in Venezuela, a tenuous country in which to invest. Those assets have become a bit of a political football. Neither of these things is good, but they aren't likely to derail Chevron over the long term. The currently high yield is an opportunity for investors who can think long term. You may have to suffer through some near-term lagging performance, but if you buy now, you'll get paid well for waiting around. A $2,000 investment in Chevron will get you around 13 shares. Looking for yield, start with this pair of high yielders With lofty yields, Brookfield Renewable and Chevron should both be attractive to dividend investors. But the real key to the story here is that both have strong businesses to support those dividends. If you think in decades and not days, these two high-yield stocks could be no-brainer additions to your portfolio right now. Should you invest $1,000 in Brookfield Renewable right now? Before you buy stock in Brookfield Renewable, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Brookfield Renewable wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $659,171!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $891,722!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor 's total average return is995% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to172%for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor. See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of June 9, 2025
