Telegram CEO Pavel Durov says he is biological father to ‘100 kids’

Pavel Durov, the co-founder and CEO of social media platform Telegram, has claimed that he is the biological father of over “100 kids in 12 countries”. In a long post on his Telegram channel with more than 5.82 million subscribers, Durov shared that he had been an active sperm donor in the previous years.
The 39-year-old, who had created Russia’s biggest social network Vkontakte at the age of 22, expressed his desire to “open-source” his DNA.
In his post, Durov said he was “just told” that he has over 100 biological kids in 12 countries. But how is this possible for a guy who has never been married and prefers to live alone, he asked.
The Telegram CEO then shared how he ended up being a sperm donor. He said, fifteen years ago, his married friend asked him to donate his sperms to help the couple have a baby.
“He said that he and his wife couldn’t have kids due to a fertility issue and asked me to donate sperm at a clinic for them to have a baby,” he said while terming it as a “weird request”.
The CEO shared that he initially thought of it as a joke and had laughed at it, “before realizing he was dead serious”.
At the clinic, Durov said, he was told that “high quality donor material” was in short supply and that it was his “civic duty” to “donate more sperm to anonymously help more couples”.
As of 2024, many years after he stopped being a donor, the CEO said, at least one IVF clinic still has his frozen sperm available for anonymous use by families who want to have kids.
Pavel Durov, in the post, said he plans to open-source his DNA so that his biological children can find each other more easily.
“Of course, there are risks, but I don’t regret having been a donor,” he said, adding that the shortage of healthy sperm has become an increasingly serious issue worldwide. “I’m proud that I did my part to help alleviate it.”
Pavel Durov said he wanted to help “destigmatize the whole notion of sperm donation and incentivize more healthy men to do it”, so that the families struggling to have kids can enjoy more options. “Defy convention — redefine the norm!”