Are tech-bros okay?
Pavel Durov — the founder of the messaging app Telegram — just shared a very interesting tidbit about the details of his will. As is often the case with successful tech founders like Elon Musk, Durov has amassed billions in his career; 17 to be exact. And, as is increasingly trendy in the tech world, he has also amassed an equally outrageous number of children — 106 to be exact.
The official term for his belief system is pronatalism. The dictionary definition is pretty straightforward: just advocacy for human reproduction. But in tech, everything must be redefined and then scaled up. After all, who needs a bus when you can Uber Shuttle?
The Wall Street Journal chronicled this new ideology through their very thorough report on Elon Musk’s management style, in which the Tesla CEO claimed the world urgently needs more children — but only from high-IQ people. Naturally.
Pavel Durov appears to share the same belief system. And perhaps, somehow, is even more controversial than Elon Musk. While Musk’s biggest controversy might be publicly accusing a sitting U.S. president of cavorting with Jeffrey Epstein, Durov’s platform has actually been used for drug trafficking, human trafficking, and other real crimes. Durov has six children whom he describes as “the official” ones, and 100 more who were conceived via sperm donation. According to People, Durov considers them all his children — and deserving of equal rights.
Durov sat down with French outlet Le Point to explain his plans to divide the wealth he amassed through both ethical means and… let’s call them “alternative” channels. He said that on June 19, 2055, all 106 of his children will receive access to his $17 billion inheritance. He reportedly allocated his estate early due to his multiple ongoing legal issues — which is just good estate planning when you think about it.
As expected, the internet was ablaze at the news that someone has over 100 children. One X user hypothesized that, with all the talk of impending world war, it’s probably just going to be Elon Musk’s kids vs. Pavel Durov’s kids. Another pointed out how eerily similar this all feels to Genghis Khan’s empire.
WW3 will be fought between the offsprings of Elon Musk and Pavel Durov https://t.co/jYth3vYHV7
— kanav (@kanavtwt) June 19, 2025
All of current humanity has genes linked to Chengiz Khan while future gens will have genes linked to Elon Musk and Pavel Durov what a downfall https://t.co/mCjwxHjOkg
— Avik Chatterjee (@just_avik) June 19, 2025
We’ve reached the point where technocrats are being earnestly compared to 12th-century Mongolian conquerors. This entire thing is getting out of hand. People are free to have families however they choose, and to spend their money in whatever way fulfills them — but can you even memorize 100 names? Every time these guys make the news, it becomes less of an update and more of a case study in how out of touch they are.
Durov is French, but this may just be another case of someone not being sufficiently taxed. They have an overabundance of resources and a limited number of things to do with them — so now it’s all about figuring out how to have and provide for over 100 children. Because that’s the logical next step after private islands and submarine cars.
A Durov v. Musk civil war on Mars used to sound like the kind of straight-to-DVD slop you’d skip in the 2000s. But in the 2020s? It’s starting to sound like a logistical possibility.
