Telegram CEO Pavel Durov is funding free IVF for women who have his children
Telegram CEO Pavel Durov is funding IVF treatments for Russian women who use his sperm at a Moscow-based clinic, a spokesperson told B-17.
Pavel Durov, the billionaire CEO of Telegram, funded fertility treatment for women using his sperm to conceive.
A clinic in Moscow is advertising the service, which it said is paid for by a “very generous” contribution by Durov.
It is a striking example of the enthusiasm of some tech figures to increase the number of births, including by fathering many children themselves.
AltraVita IVF Clinic in Moscow has been advertising the service since at least this summer.
In a phone call with B-17, a clinic spokesman confirmed the free IVF program, which he said was only open to Russian women.
The spokesperson said the treatment would normally cost around $5,000. He declined to give more details of the treatment, citing medical confidentiality.
Durov is being prosecuted in France, where officials are seeking to hold him personally responsible for illicit material shared on Telegram.
Durov, who has French and Russian citizenship, was detained in August as he left his private jet in Paris. He was released from custody but is banned from leaving France while the case progresses.
In a July Telegram post, Durov said he started donating sperm 15 years ago, resulting in “over 100” children in 12 countries.
He said AltraVita had his sperm and that it was “available for anonymous use by families who want to have kids.”
In the post, he spoke of declining fertility as “an increasingly serious issue worldwide” and said he wanted to normalize sperm donation.
“Defy convention — redefine the norm!” he concluded.
Durov’s pronatalist views are in keeping with other tech figures who see declining fertility as an urgent crisis.
Elon Musk has repeatedly said he believes too few births in Western countries will lead to societal collapse.
Musk fathered at least 12 children, including six with his first wife, Justine Musk, three with the musician Grimes, and three with the Nurealink executive Shivon Zillis.
Sam Altman, the OpenAI CEO, has invested in reproductive tech businesses.
One is the startup Conception, which aims to enable women to conceive later in life and also to enable two biological males to reproduce.
In a 2022 episode of the Greymatter Podcast, Altman, who is gay, said he “of course” is going to have a “big family,” and that “I think having a lot of kids is great.”
Peter Thiel, the billionaire cofounder of PayPal, raised the issue of birth rates at the University of Cambridge in May.
He said it was “very odd” that people are not reproducing themselves and that it’s “probably somehow entangled” with stagnation, decline, and a sense of pessimism about the future.
JD Vance, the Vice President-elect, has also long been a proponent of increasing birthrates, as the AP reported earlier this year.
On the campaign trail, he presented declining birth rates as an existential issue, saying, “We don’t have enough families and children to continue as a nation,” which he argued was a more urgent priority than supporting Ukraine.
