Pavel Durov on his arrest in France, Macron, Russia, the FBI

Who really knows Pavel Durov? Arrested in France and facing charges as explosive as they are controversial – complicity in drug trafficking, money laundering, organized fraud among others –, the creator of Telegram, the encrypted messaging app used by more than a billion people worldwide, including Volodymyr Zelensky and Emmanuel Macron, denounces a conspiracy, a denial of justice, and claims to be already punished without having been tried.

In this extensive interview, the longest he has ever given, the man who founded VKontakte (the "Russian Facebook") before leaving Russia in 2014 to preserve his independence reflects on his fight for freedom of expression, his categorical refusal to sell Telegram, his concerns about the future of democracy, his deep attachment to France.

He reveals information about several state powers and intelligence services, including the FBI and DGSE. He also shares his views on Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Sam Altman, the creator of ChatGPT. For the first time, Pavel Durov opens up about his admiration for Malcolm X's battles, the readings that shaped him, the figures that inspire him, and reveals intimate family memories, long kept secret. A hunted man, who claims to be ready to die rather than betray his values.

Le Point: You are charged with 17 very serious counts related to child pornography, drug trafficking, money laundering... Do you understand what you are accused of ?

Pavel Durov: It's totally absurd. Just because criminals use our messaging service among many others doesn't make those who run it criminals... Nothing has ever been proven showing that I am, even for a second, guilty of anything. But it seems I'm already being punished at this stage through the ban on leaving the territory. As if the French judges understood that there isn't enough substance for a real conviction later and wanted to punish me today. They say Telegram refused to cooperate. That's false. It's the French police who didn't follow the international procedure correctly. Telegram teams even had to show them how to proceed.

I met twice with the judge handling my case, in December 2024 and February 2025. And I have another appointment coming in July. But it's crazy... I understand that things take time. But why do I have to stay in France while waiting ? My lawyers have submitted to the justice system all the documents that were requested from us.

I was interrogated relentlessly in the judicial customs premises. For four days, I answered all questions. At night, a bright light illuminated the 7-square-meter room where I slept on a concrete bed. It was clean but there was no pillow. And the mattress [he brings his thumb and index finger together to mime its thickness, editor's note] was no thicker than a yoga mat.

Yes, enormously. My parents have very serious health problems, and, statistically, they only have a few years left to live. I've been deprived of precious months with them. Also, I have a son who was just born and I'm missing the first months of his life. He still doesn't have a passport, because I wasn't present at his birth in Dubai. I also have a teenage son who is in a boarding school in Dubai, who just broke his arm, and who has no parent by his side to support him.They say Telegram refused to cooperate. That's false.

Yes, indeed. For example, I was supposed to speak at the Oslo Freedom Forum which took place last May. The president of this forum is Yulia Navalnaya, Alexei Navalny's wife. I wanted to meet her, as well as activists from other regions of the world, to understand how they use Telegram and what we could improve. The judges forbade me from going there. We had to do a live interview by videoconference. I have been defending freedom of expression for almost twenty years. Navalny sometimes said things I agreed with, and sometimes others I didn't agree with – but his fundamental right has always been to be able to express himself freely. Either I did what the Russian authorities expected of me, or I sold my shares and left the country.

I only met a high-ranking Russian official once, in 2013. I was then head of VKontakte, the "Russian Facebook," and I had refused to provide information about regime opponents. The meeting didn't last more than fifteen minutes. The high-ranking Russian official insisted that, in his opinion, social networks should be government tools. I then had two options: either I did exactly what the Russian authorities expected of me, or I sold my shares in the company and left the country. The Russian power left me free to choose. So I told them: "I understand, thank you very much." Two months later, I sold my shares in VKontakte. I haven't set foot in Moscow for more than ten years.

No. We process reports from Russia and other countries in order to remove manifestly illegal content (like public announcements for selling illegal drugs), but we have never satisfied requests related to political censorship or political persecution. At the time of VKontakte, I publicly refused to collaborate for this reason. I was even summoned by Russian justice. In 2014, I left everything.

According to the media Important Stories, you nevertheless continue to travel to Russia. Some say: if he's still alive, it's because he has an agreement with the Kremlin...

I went to Russia between 2015 and 2017 to see my family who is in Saint Petersburg – which was never a secret, I even published it on my social networks. I also went there during Covid to support my father. But I haven't returned there for four years, since the first articles appeared mentioning a possible war with Ukraine in 2021.

Before coming to Paris last August, I went to Azerbaijan, after passing through Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. I stopped in Baku, where President Putin arrived two days after I left for the mountains. I saw neither him nor anyone from his entourage. During this trip, I only met the president of Azerbaijan, with whom we discussed Telegram's role in the country. You know, in three years, I met 16 heads of state. I didn't always agree with them.

You know, in three years, I met 16 heads of state. I didn't always agree with them. Like Paul Kagame in Rwanda. You can criticize his methods, but what he did in Rwanda is impressive. I realized this by going to the villages. I saw people who, despite the misery and history this country has known, smile, want to get by.

À LIRE AUSSI EXCLUSIF. FBI, Russie, DGSE, Macron... Les confessions de Pavel Durov How, in your opinion, has the war in Ukraine influenced the perception of Telegram ?

In Russia, they say Telegram supports Ukraine. In Ukraine, they say Telegram spreads Russian propaganda. In reality, we have a duty of neutrality. Telegram is a platform where opposing ideas can clash, where everyone can access different points of view and freely decide what they want to believe. I will never give my opinion on a geopolitical conflict, because it would immediately be interpreted as support for one of the two camps, which a neutral platform must not do if it wants to remain an impartial arbiter applying the same rules to everyone. But I will always fight for fair access to free and independent information.Once you legitimize censorship, it's difficult to go back.

These laws are dangerous because they can be turned against those who created them. Today, they target those called conspiracy theorists. Tomorrow, they might target their own authors. These are precedents that weaken democracy in the long term. Once you legitimize censorship, it's difficult to go back.

Yes, but we are very different. Elon runs several companies at once, while I only run one. Elon can be very emotional, while I try to think deeply before acting. But that can also be the source of his strength. A person's advantage can often become a weakness in another context.

What do you think are the qualities and flaws of Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's founder ?

Mark adapts well and quickly follows trends, but he seems to lack fundamental values that he would remain faithful to, regardless of changes in political climate or fashion in the tech sector. Again, Mark's strong point and his weak point may have the same origin. Remove the weakness, and you also remove the strength.

À LIRE AUSSI Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens) versus Yann Le Cun (Meta) on artificial intelligence And those of Sam Altman, the creator of OpenAI, parent company of ChatGPT ?

Sam has excellent social skills, which allowed him to forge alliances around ChatGPT. But some wonder if his technical expertise is still sufficient, now that his co-founder Ilya [Sutskever, editor's note] and many other scientists have left OpenAI. It will be interesting to follow ChatGPT's evolution and their ability to stay ahead in an increasingly competitive environment. I want to specify that I make no difference between my children.

It has great importance. I wrote my will very recently... I decided that my children would not have access to my fortune until a period of thirty 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. 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.

Six of whom I am the official father, whom I had with three different partners. The others come from my anonymous donation. The clinic, where I started donating sperm fifteen years ago to help a friend, told me that more than 100 babies had been conceived this way in 12 countries.

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.

I subject myself to a disciplined life and exercise, 300 push-ups in a row, without interruption followed by 300 squats - also in a row every morning. I don't drink alcohol, coffee, or tea, I don't smoke and I stay away from sugar. In short, from everything that can make you dependent. I like being in cold water. I sometimes swim in Finland or Lake Geneva in the middle of winter – which can cause incomprehension (He smiles).

If I disappear, a non-profit foundation will take over. My goal is to ensure the platform's continuity: I want it to continue existing independently, respectfully of privacy and freedom of expression.

In the past, you were targeted by the Pegasus spyware. Yet you manage to do without a mobile phone...

I don't constantly move around with a phone. I manage the Telegram app and work meetings by videoconference with my iPad. I prefer reading, thinking and writing rather than being glued to a phone. It frees me. My team knows how to reach me, and I can stay focused. Attention is today our most precious asset. Notifications are parasites in our lives.

Exactly. Attention is today our most precious asset. Notifications are parasites in our lives. I prefer to preserve my mind. It's also a form of respect for people I interact with: I'm there, with them, really.

This type of initiative seems ineffective to me. Children can easily use VPNs. It's not viable. The most important thing is to instill discipline. We must show them that success through effort gives invaluable confidence. Banning serves no purpose if adults themselves don't set an example.

I'm not a fan of everything he does, but I consider that banning Donald Trump from social networks was a mistake, and that it's even very dangerous. It set a precedent. And if we can allow ourselves to act this way with a former American president, then it means everyone is vulnerable.

Exactly. Today, maybe it's the bad guys who are censored. But tomorrow, it might be you. Freedom is not defended halfway.

Our starting premise is to bet on human intelligence. If we offer consumers an experience that is superior to what the competition offers, they test it and then adopt it. In addition, people often use several applications: one for work, another for personal life, another for their studies.... Furthermore, our application consumes very little memory or bandwidth, which makes it very popular in countries like Afghanistan and Iran. And this despite the fact that Telegram has been banned there by the Iranian government since 2018 for refusing to block protesters' channels.

Even if this partly goes through infrastructures or data centers based in Russia ?

WhatsApp copies everything we do with a five-year delay... But it doesn't bother me, it validates our choices. I've already met Mark Zuckerberg. I respect him as a business leader, but, with such means, I still think they could show more imagination. I recently learned that a team at WhatsApp was specifically tasked with observing us...

Yes, I met its leader, Meredith Whittaker, last year in Paris. She seemed to me to be an intelligent and reasonable person. Of course, we'll debate who uses the best encryption. And I'll continue to wonder why all American messaging services (Signal, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Google Messages) use exactly the same encryption technology, as if using another one was forbidden. But, fundamentally, Telegram and Signal are on the same side facing the challenges we must overcome.

Google tried to buy us at the very beginning of the adventure. I had met Sundar Pichai in Mountain View, it was in 2017. He offered me 1 billion dollars. Google wanted to acquire a messaging service after missing WhatsApp, finally bought by Facebook. They tried to create their own messaging application, but it's very difficult. It's like growing a tree, it takes time and a lot of care.

I didn't hesitate for a second. It's not a question of price, Telegram is simply not for sale. Because Telegram is not a commodity, it's a project. An idea. A promise of independence, confidentiality, freedom made to users. If you sell, you betray this promise. And that's impossible, I will never do it.

Yes, I hold 100 % of the company. There are no external shareholders and thus no interference. It's the only way to guarantee Telegram's total independence. I learned the lesson from VKontakte's history. As soon as you share control, you lose your freedom.

Not really. We have a team of about fifty people based in Dubai – and that's more than enough. Small teams can move faster. We also collaborate with more than 1,000 service providers in other regions of the world (mainly content moderators), but the number of developers doesn't need to increase with the number of users. We sometimes hire new engineers, selecting them from winners of coding contests we regularly organize. The last one we recruited won 17 of our contests in eight years – and he was only 22 years old. My brother Nikolai is currently working on real AI – AI capable of thinking logically and understanding the world.

The problem is that today generative AI like LLM [large language model, editor's note] doesn't think. It doesn't understand. It just reads enormous amounts of text and regurgitates a consensual version. It seems credible, but it's not necessarily so. And we humans let ourselves be fooled, because we associate sophisticated language with intelligence. But these models are not intelligent. They are just sophisticated. My brother Nikolai is currently working on real AI – AI capable of thinking logically and understanding the world.

We are experiencing unprecedented technological acceleration. For a teenager, adapting is natural. But for experienced professionals, like lawyers or doctors who earn high salaries, the transition will be brutal. Their perceived value in the market could diminish, even if they are excellent. Yes, jobs will disappear. But history shows that others will appear. What matters is the wealth created. Living like a king without having to work like a slave is a form of progress. And as long as we want to create, to bring something to society, there will be a place for everyone.

AI allows us efficient moderation. Thanks to it, we can for example remove up to 99 % of problematic content. Millions of posts per hour, it's impossible to process by hand. Each user can also summarize discussion threads, documents, correct text, translate, find writing help...

Nikolai is a genius, but he no longer participates in Telegram's operational activities for many years. In recent years, he has focused on fundamental research, like designing an infinitely "scalable" blockchain architecture.

Telegram, which generates 500 million euros in profits, has allowed you to make a fortune...

Telegram has never paid me dividends, and I don't have a salary – for me, Telegram is a source of expenses, not revenue. I wanted this project to exist, so I spent almost all the money I had obtained by selling my VKontakte shares (more than 200 million dollars) to build Telegram. Then, we raised funds for Telegram's blockchain project, but we had to reimburse investors in 2020 after its ban by the SEC. We returned everything to them. But, for that, we had to get into debt for 2 billion dollars. Telegram still carries this debt.

In Paris, you have largely resided at the Hotel de Crillon, a palace. Have you developed a taste for this luxurious life ?

I don't own a house, yacht, or private jet – even though I sometimes rent one –, and I like staying in beautiful hotels. I think owning things can distract me from my mission: building Telegram. Last October, I realized I had been wearing the same pairs of shoes all year for four years (my friends gave me a new one for my 40th birthday). I only have one formal suit, but most of the time I wear sportswear – usually Adidas or Nike. The media says my fortune is estimated between 15 and 20 billion dollars, but that's only a theoretical estimate of what Telegram could be worth. 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.

I remember very well the black jacket I wore as a teenager. I only had one and I loved it. My mother had bought it second-hand in a small neighborhood store. She had two jobs: German interpreter and legal assistant in an American firm in Saint Petersburg. My father taught for a long time without being paid. The Russian state was bankrupt in the 1990s. It was hard, but formative. I never missed school, even when sick. My mother said: "You're not sick, you're going to school."

My answer [to the DGSE] was very clear: I haven't silenced protesters in Belarus, Russia, Iran or Hong Kong, and I'm not going to start doing it in Romania.

On May 18, you accused France of having influenced the elections in Romania, which was denied by the Quai d'Orsay and the DGSE...

It was during a private conversation at the Crillon, in the Battles salon, that I had with Nicolas Lerner, the head of the DGSE, and a DGSE agent who had previously worked at the French embassy in the United Arab Emirates. Nicolas told me: "We could have a problem in Romania," and asked me if I could remove Telegram channels run by supporters of a conservative candidate in the Romanian presidential election – those already existing and those that might appear in the future. I remember he mentioned that he thought these channels risked starting to organize demonstrations. My answer was very clear: I haven't silenced protesters in Belarus, Russia, Iran or Hong Kong, and I'm not going to start doing it in Romania. I told them that, if they think that because I'm stuck here in France I'm going to obey everything I'm asked, they are very wrong. I prefer to die rather than act against my values and betray my users.

Yes, I have always been reachable by French authorities, since my office is in the same building as the French consulate in Dubai. A DGSE agent working for the French embassy, accompanied by his colleagues, sometimes came to see me at the office to ask for Telegram's help in their counter-terrorism efforts in France – faster than what the usual legal procedure allows, because the situation was urgent. Last July, he again asked me for help to prevent a possible attack during the Olympic Games. We provided our help, and he thanked me for it. And a month later... I got arrested in Paris.

Telegram employees cannot see or read users' messages, which explains why we have never disclosed a single private message in our entire history. If we receive a court decision indicating that an identifier is suspected in a criminal investigation, we analyze metadata, which allows us to provide an IP address and phone number. That's all.

For a long time, he could send me messages on Telegram on all sorts of subjects. The last time was the day of my statement about the Romanian elections and the DGSE. He sent me a message (He smiles). I didn't answer him.

He understood certain things but could have done much better. I had placed great hopes in him, he carried a real vision. But, as the end of his second term approaches, I see that he's not making the right choices. I am very disappointed. France is becoming ever weaker. There's an obsession with communication, while real strength doesn't show itself, it proves itself. Reality has become an illusion, like a Potemkin village set.

President Macron nevertheless enabled your French naturalization in 2021 as an eminent foreigner, just like Evan Spiegel, Snap's co-creator...

Yes, this makes my position all the more delicate. I deeply admire French culture and history. It's an honor to be associated with France. But the direction taken by the president concerns me.

Prosperity comes from competition between ideas, companies, policies. And, today, it's not encouraged in France. The country is losing competitiveness. It's paradoxical, because the French have a unique talent, an ability to do things with balance and beauty. They could contribute so much more effectively to the global economy.

Yes. Many of the best talents leave. We see more and more of them in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, the United States, Milan... It's a real brain drain.

I chose Dubai because I can manage a global company there much more efficiently. Unlike France, where bureaucracy is heavy, Dubai offers an agile environment. The procedures are automated there, supported by artificial intelligence, and almost everything is done online. Even justice is faster there. In France, a simple tax investigation can freeze a company's accounts for years, until it suffocates, even if it is later cleared. This kind of heaviness kills the entrepreneurial spirit.

One of the main reasons is the pressure the American government can exert, particularly on tech companies. Certainly, the United States is not the only country that wants to control platforms. But I've already had pressure from the FBI. And, in the United States, there's a legal procedure that allows the government to force an engineer to install a backdoor in software, without him having the right to warn anyone, not even his employer. This mechanism is called a "gag order." If an engineer discloses this to his boss, he can go to prison. This kind of law gives the government the possibility to legally transform your own employees into spies, without you knowing about it. And then there was also this incident in San Francisco – the only time I was physically assaulted. I never forgot it.

Politicians too often lack courage. They always look for scapegoats to explain why they failed. In France, a country where inhabitants are very demanding and quick to complain, this attitude only makes things worse. Instead of talking to citizens like adults by saying: "Everything depends on us. We're going to roll up our sleeves," they point fingers at Trump and his tariffs, the role of tech giants, immigrants... Depending on which party is speaking, the culprit changes name.

If you raise one or two generations with a certain mindset, it then takes decades to change it. If we continue to waste time, the risk increases that the country will have to go through very extreme changes. Like the Soviet Union in the 1990s, where we witnessed economic collapse, anarchy, crime, drug abuse. Then, Russia emerged from this crisis with a vibrant private sector and strong growth. Then, fifteen years later, everything deteriorated again for other reasons. When you delay necessary reforms too long, you end up experiencing a collapse. The French don't realize that freedom and prosperity are not given.

When I lived in Russia, I recognized the agents following me, even in the metro. Today, I don't even think about it anymore. Xavier Niel, with whom I used to walk in Paris, once told me jokingly: "With all the intelligence services from different countries following you, you don't need private security. They're everywhere, even on the rooftops, there, watching you !"

I believe there is more in this life than just matter. There's an invisible dimension that we sometimes feel deeply without being able to name it. I was baptized as a Christian, but I was also very interested in Eastern traditions like Taoism or Buddhism. I practiced meditation and yoga for a long time. For me, all religions seek to express the same fundamental truth, each with its own cultural language. I don't want to limit myself to a single path.

It's possible. Civilizations have always sought to explain the invisible world with the tools of their time. Before, it was reincarnation, spirits. Today, with technology, we talk about simulation. It's just a contemporary way of expressing an ancient mystery. In a hundred years, we'll use other metaphors. Perhaps even more powerful ones.

Technology, so powerful, also pollutes... and yet you are obsessed with the proliferation of microplastics...

These particles, omnipresent in water, air, food, could eventually affect our civilization in an insidious way, somewhat like lead sapped the health of Romans. History remembers their empire, but doesn't forget the role of lead – in pipes, utensils –, which weakened generations. Today, we observe a rapid drop in sperm concentration in men in many regions of the world, partly because of plastics. If we continue to ignore these invisible pollutants, we pose a threat not only to our individual health, but also to our survival. The real danger is uniformity. The world is becoming too homogeneous.

Every time I hear someone speak Italian, it touches me. It reminds me of my school years in Turin, where my father taught as a professor of classical philology, when I was between 4 and 8 years old. A teacher from Calabria was particularly kind to me. The others, they made fun a little: "the little communist," "the Soviet kid"... Northern Italians were sometimes a bit arrogant, not very welcoming to people from the South or to foreigners. But the vast majority of inhabitants were very warm.

Durov is a media mogul/billionaire practically unknown in the US, but Telegram has as an incredibly large global reach.

What is it about billionaire breeders?? From the interview:

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How many children do you have ?

His Wiki page says that his mother is Ukrainian.

I expect that many Freepers will, for that reason alone, regard him as a hero or villain.

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