Video interview with Durov conducted by Carlson: on maintaining Telegram’s neutrality, FBI pressure, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg

Last night we got it the same interview with Telegram founder Pavel Durov, which was taken by the famous propagandist Tucker Carlson. As expected — this is a continuous stream of Telegram self-promotion and of course «heroic struggle» Elon Musk Durov for freedom of speech and secrecy of correspondence. In this post, we present some of the main points from the interview, which are highlighted in the headline.

The part where Pavel Durov is once again trying to to refute its affiliation with Russia, you can see for yourself if you wish, but we will only remind you that one of the creators and former CEO of the Russian social network Vkontakte, which was banned and blocked in Ukraine in 2017, is one of the founders and former CEOs of the social network, has never explicitly called Russia an aggressor and terrorist that unleashed a war with the sole purpose of genocide of Ukrainians and destruction of Ukraine as a state.

In an hour-long interview, Durov said that in 2013 he refused to give out the personal data of Vkontakte users who were involved in organizing protests in Ukraine at the request of the Russian side and left Russia. The Telegram founder said that he tried to do business in different parts of the world: Berlin, London, Singapore, San Francisco. But bureaucracy hindered him everywhere. Eventually, «seven years ago» he came to the UAE, and since then he has no regrets. Durov believes that the main advantage of the UAE is its adherence to «neutrality» as one of the fundamental principles of foreign policy.

In the interview, Pavel Durov mentioned the harassment by the FBI and other US intelligence agencies, who harassed him at the airport and came to his home to find out details about the messenger’s operation. He also told how during his last visit to the United States, local services tried to find out from one of Telegram’s developers what open libraries the product uses and tried to convince him to add some tools «to the code».

The founder of Telegram complained that due to its neutrality, the messenger is constantly under pressure from governments of different countries, but the biggest pressure comes from Apple and Google, which constantly abuse their monopoly position and can easily remove Telegram customers from their stores for violating internal rules. According to Durov, Apple and Google use generalized wording of the rules to interpret and apply them in accordance with their own interests. What if, This is a very old song.

What else did Pavel Durov say in the interview?

• Telegram is used by 900 million people every month (by the end of 2024, he expects it to grow to 1 billion) and 2.5 million new users register on the messenger every day, with zero advertising costs. According to Pavel Durov, Telegram’s audience is growing exclusively organically, while competitors are pouring «tens of billions of dollars» into advertising and copying features from six years ago.
• The creator of Telegram has «several hundred million dollars in his bank account» and keeps part of it in bitcoins. He doesn’t waste money on real estate, luxury cars, and yachts, but instead makes informed decisions that are valuable and meaningful to his close circle of 900 million Telegram users.
• Pavel Durov is the sole and exclusive owner of Telegram. He is also the main PM who makes all management decisions. At least according to him. Telegram does not have an HR department, as Durov considers it unnecessary, and the entire development team — 30 best specialists, «a kind of Navy SEAL squad».
• So far, Telegram has not raised money from venture capital funds to maintain its independence, and these principles remain. There are no plans to go public (IPO) in the near future, but it is possible in the more distant future.
• Durov believes that his Vkontakte was surpassed by Facebook in many ways, and that Mark Zuckerberg allegedly took and used the idea that Durov shared with him during a personal meeting.
• The founder of Telegram likes Elon Musk’s management style and the fact that it was he who bought Twitter (X), as the businessman is constantly experimenting and trying to create innovations, while others are just copying the ideas of others. He believes that the world needs more innovators like Elon Musk.

We can only recall that yesterday Durov also teased another interview with an unknown liberal journalist.

Full version of the video interview with Durov conducted by Carlson