Pavel Durov, the co-founder and CEO of messaging app Telegram, was arrested at an airport outside of Paris on Saturday, French media reported.
French officers detained Durov at around 8:00 p.m. local time after his private jet landed at Le Bourget Airport. The billionaire entrepreneur had been under an arrest warrant as part of a police investigation in France into alleged lack of moderation and “criminal activity” on Telegram, according to Reuters.
Durov, who was born in Russia but holds dual citizenship in France and the United Arab Emirates, had been traveling from Azerbaijan.
The Russian embassy in France said it is taking “immediate” steps to clarify his situation.
Founded in 2013 and based in Dubai, where Durov also lives, Telegram is one of the largest social media platforms in the world, with more than 900 million users. It offers end-to-end encryption in messaging to protect users’ privacy.
Durov left Russia in 2014 after resisting demands by the Russian government to share private data on the social network VK, which he co-founded but later sold.
Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X, shared the news of Durov’s arrest, saying, “Check out this ad for the First Amendment. It is very convincing.”
In a recent interview with Tucker Carlson, Durov said that U.S. federal law enforcement had tried to convince a Telegram engineer to change the platform’s software so that law enforcement could read users’ messages.
“Whenever I would go to the U.S., I would have two FBI agents greeting me at the airport, asking questions. One time, I was having my breakfast at 9 a.m., and the FBI showed up at my house that I was renting. And that was quite surprising. And I thought, you know, we’re getting too much attention here,” Durov told Carlson.
“My understanding is that they wanted to establish a relationship, to, in a way control Telegram better,” he continued.
Durov added that Telegram seeks to avoid censorship and noted that it was one of the only major social media platforms that did not remove accounts skeptical of restrictive COVID measures.
Carlson slammed the arrest of Durov, writing on X, “Pavel Durov sits in a French jail tonight, a living warning to any platform owner who refuses to censor the truth at the behest of governments and intel agencies. Darkness is descending fast on the formerly free world.”
He pointed out that while Russia sought to gain control of Telegram, it was ultimately France, “a western country, a Biden administration ally and enthusiastic NATO member,” that detained Durov.