Telegram founder Pavel Durov has made a highly controversial offer to women around the world: have his children via IVF, and those children will be entitled to a share of his multibillion-dollar fortune.
The 41-year-old Russian tech billionaire, whose net worth is estimated at around $17 billion, has said he is willing to fully fund in vitro fertilization (IVF) for women under the age of 37 who are willing to conceive using his sperm.
Durov claims he has already fathered at least 100 children through sperm donation, in addition to six children from three partners, according to international media reports. He has framed his actions not as a personal vanity project, but as something closer to a mission.
He has described sperm donation as a “civic duty,” arguing that the world is facing a shortage of what he calls “high‑quality donor material” and that donating sperm needs to be destigmatized.
In an October appearance on the Lex Fridman Podcast, Durov said that all of his biological offspring will be treated equally when it comes to his wealth, regardless of how they were conceived or who their mothers are.
“As long as they can establish their shared DNA with me, someday, maybe in 30 years from now, they will be entitled to a share of my estate after I’m gone,” he said, adding, “I make no difference between my children.”
Durov has also linked his campaign to broader concerns about falling sperm counts and rising infertility rates worldwide. He has publicly blamed environmental factors such as plastic pollution for damaging male fertility and has said he is “happy to help” by making himself available as a donor.
He has previously stated that his sperm donation journey began in 2010, when he agreed to help a friend who was struggling to have children. Fertility specialists later told him that there was a shortage of suitable donors, which encouraged him to continue.
In a Telegram post in July 2024, Durov claimed that his donations had by then “helped over a hundred couples in 12 countries to have kids.”
“Of course, there are risks, but I don’t regret having been a donor,” he wrote. “The shortage of healthy sperm has become an increasingly serious issue worldwide, and I’m proud that I did my part to help alleviate it.”
His latest offer, IVF funded by him and an eventual share of his estate for any confirmed biological children, has raised immediate ethical, legal, and social questions, but Durov appears intent on presenting it as a personal solution to what he views as a global fertility crisis.
