Pavel Durov, the founder and CEO of Telegram, is funding all in vitro fertilization (IVF) costs for women under 37 who wish to conceive using his donated sperm. He also promises to share his vast fortune with his "descendants," The Wall Street Journal reported on 22/12.
Durov has declared that all his children, regardless of how they were conceived, will inherit his immense wealth. Forbes estimates his fortune at 17 billion USD. "If they can prove they share DNA with me, then perhaps in 30 years, they will have the right to receive a portion of the inheritance after I pass away," Durov, who was born in Russia and now resides in Dubai, shared in a Lex Friedman podcast in October. In an exclusive interview with France's Le Point magazine in 2024, he also affirmed there would be no discrimination among his children. The 41-year-old tech entrepreneur stated he is the father of at least 100 children through sperm donation, in addition to six official children with three women.
Pavel Durov's ambition is not a sudden impulse. The Telegram owner began donating sperm in 2010 to help a friend struggling with infertility, subsequently transforming this act into a "civic duty." Durov believes environmental factors, especially plastic pollution, are destroying male fertility. Therefore, he announced plans to "open-source" his personal DNA data so his biological children can easily find each other, despite potential social risks.
"The shortage of healthy sperm is a serious global problem, and I am proud to contribute to mitigating it," he affirmed.
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Pavel Durov, founder and CEO of the Telegram messaging app. Photo: Instagram. |
Pavel Durov, founder and CEO of the Telegram messaging app. Photo: Instagram.
To realize this vision, Durov's sperm became a "hot commodity" through AltraVita, a private clinic serving Russia's elite and international clients, known for its meticulously "screened" embryos. Sergey Yakovenko, a geneticist and long-time friend of Durov, founded this clinic. Last summer, AltraVita, a fertility clinic in southern Moscow, welcomed numerous attractive women. They came for an unusual promotional campaign: free sperm. The source of that sperm was Durov.
A former doctor at AltraVita, who examined many participants, stated that the women who joined the program were all exceptionally attractive, highly educated, and healthy. They sought to have children with a successful, intelligent man, matching the description of Durov's "Donor Profile number 6." To avoid legal complications, participants had to be single women.
With this project, Durov joins a group of the planet's most powerful billionaires, such as Elon Musk, who are striving to push ethical boundaries to address population decline by having as many children as possible.
However, behind the portrait of a "decisive and freedom-loving" genetic philanthropist are contrasting shades in his personal life and career. Beyond his tech fame, Durov is entangled in a lawsuit with Irina Bolgar, a human rights lawyer living in Switzerland and the mother of three of his children. Bolgar accuses Durov of cutting all financial support since 2023 and even abusing young children. Concurrently, Telegram also faces legal accusations of lax content moderation for extremist content, leading to Durov's arrest in France last year.
By Binh Minh (The Wall Street Journal, NY Post)
