Tesla CEO Elon Musk has stood in solidarity with detained Russian billionaire Pavel Durov, after he was arrested in France on Saturday in connection with crimes against minors.
Durov, the CEO of Telegram, was arrested Le Bourget airport outside Paris shortly after landing on a private jet late on Saturday, after OFMIN, a French government agency responsible for protecting minors from violence, issued an arrest warrant for him.
He was accused of facilitating organized crime, drug trafficking, fraud, cyberbullying, and the promotion of terrorism on his platform, which has around 950million users worldwide.
Musk has joined critics of the arrest who accused authorities of cracking down on free speech, tweeting last night ‘#FreePavel’ with a short clip of Durov speaking with Tucker Carlson.
The interview, which first aired in April, showed Durov praising X for ‘seemingly becoming more freedom of speech.’
‘It’s a great development and things are starting to change, it seems.’
Elon Musk (pictured during the Cannes Lions International Festival Of Creativity 2024) has joined critics of the arrest who accused authorities of cracking down on free speech
Pavel Durov, the CEO of Telegram, (pictured)was arrested Le Bourget airport outside Paris shortly after landing on a private jet late on Saturday
Musk tweeted ‘#FreePavel’ with a short clip of Durov speaking with Tucker Carlson
Referring to the national motto of France, Musk also posted: ‘Liberté Liberté! Liberté?’
Over the weekend, he also posted ‘Dangerous times’ in response to claims that much of Europe was cracking down on free speech.’
Telegram is an encrypted messaging app that is ‘secure and free’. It has committed to never disclosing information about its users or passing data on to third parties.
Intended as a rival to WhatsApp, Telegram users can have ‘secret chats’, in which messages are stored on devices rather than the cloud, and messages can also be set to self-destruct after a certain time period.
Telegram’s determination to remain ‘neutral’ and not take sides has opened it up to criticism, with terrorists, criminal gangs and extremists using the app as a means of communication.
It has faced criticism over suggestions of being used by far-Right extremists in the recent violent protests across England.
Telegram slammed the arrest of its chief executive Pavel Durov as ‘absurd’ after he was detained over allegations that he failed to curb criminal activity on the messaging app.
The company said in a statement published via the app: ‘Telegram abides by EU laws, including the Digital Services Act – its moderation is within industry standards.
Questions are being asked over why Telegram CEO Pavel Durov (pictured), arrested last night at a French airport, would risk travelling knowing he would likely be detained
Durov founded the app in 2013 along with his brother Nikolai (Stock image)
Pavel Durov is a social media mogul arrested over allegations that he failed to curb criminal activity on the messaging app Telegram
‘Pavel Durov has nothing to hide and travels frequently in Europe,’ it added.
‘It is absurd to claim that a platform or its owner are responsible for abuse of that platform.’
In a recent TV interview, Mr Durov, who fled Russia a decade ago, insisted Telegram was ‘neutral’ and ‘we apply the rules equally to all sides’. Western governments have often criticised Telegram for lack of content moderating on the messaging service.
Speaking about disputes with governments, he told US broadcaster Tucker Carlson: ‘Politicians and societies know what to expect from social media platforms and where the red lines are. I don’t necessarily believe that things are going to get worse.’
A Telegram spokesperson previously told the Mail that ‘calls to violence are explicitly forbidden’ and that the app used AI, proactive moderating and ‘user reports’ to remove content that breaches its terms.
As tech billionaires with particular visions of how the future of the world ought to be, Musk and Durov are often compared and contrasted to each other.
The greatest uniter between the two tech moguls is their penchant for hair transplants.
While Musk is worth an eyewatering $247.2bn, largely thanks to the massive value of Tesla, a publicly traded company, Durov is worth a comparatively paltry $15bn, making him the 120th richest person in the world.
The pair also appear to have a similar attitude to children. Durov has candidly spoken about the amount of sperm he has donated across the world, and is believed to have fathered over 100 children.
Musk, meanwhile, is believed to have had at least 12 children.
Their attitudes to marriage appear to be different, however. While Musk has been in three marriages, Durov is still a bachelor.
But the greatest uniter between the two tech moguls is their penchant for hair transplants.
Both of them were seen with fairly shocking hairlines in their youths, which mysteriously reversed course after they each began taking home huge sums of cash.