Billionaire With 100 Kids Pays Women to Use His Sperm

Women have been lining up at a Moscow fertility clinic for a very specific freebie: sperm from Telegram billionaire Pavel Durov, the Wall Street Journal reports. The 41-year-old tech founder says he has fathered more than 100 children in at least a dozen countries via sperm donations, on top of six kids with three women. This wasn't by chance. A Moscow clinic called AltraVita has openly marketed his frozen "biomaterial," noting the billionaire with "high genetic compatibility" will cover IVF costs for women under 37 who use it. Durov upped the stakes this summer by telling a French magazine that all of his biological children will be entitled to an equal share of his estate—assuming they can prove their DNA matches his.

Forbes estimates his net worth at $17 billion, largely tied to Telegram; he has said he plans to leave the app to a nonprofit foundation and has also disclosed a sizable bitcoin stash. The billionaire—subject of a new biography from independent Russian writer Nikolay Kononov, per the Guardian—says he began donating sperm around 2010, first to help a friend and then to address what he calls a global shortage of "high-quality donor material." Though he stopped donating years ago, Durov says his frozen sperm at AltraVita remains available. The billionaire frames his prolific donations as a response to falling sperm counts and a broader civilizational slide, warning of what he calls an oncoming "dark, dystopian world" and "biological" self-destruction, per the Journal.

His stance puts him in a small circle of ultra-wealthy men publicly tying personal reproduction to demographic and technological debates, a group that includes Elon Musk, who jokingly responded to Durov's 100-plus children by claiming these were "rookie numbers" compared to Genghis Khan. Durov's expanding biological legacy is unfolding alongside a messy personal life and mounting scrutiny. He is locked in a financial and custody dispute with a former partner in Switzerland, which his spokesperson characterizes as an attempt to "extract money." The Dubai-based billionaire also faces charges in France over alleged criminal use of Telegram, charges he denies.