Telegram Founder Durov Alleges 2018 Poisoning Attempt

Pavel Durov, founder of Telegram, said in an interview with Lex Fridman that he survived an alleged poisoning attempt in spring 2018 after finding something left by a “weird neighbour” at his rented townhouse. He described rapid, severe symptoms — acute pain, loss of sight and hearing, difficulty breathing, burst blood vessels and weeks of immobility — and said he woke the next day unable to walk and believing he was dying. Durov said he kept the episode secret for nearly a decade to avoid alarming his team and because it coincided with sensitive business activity, including fundraising for the TON blockchain project, which raised about $1.7 billion. He framed the incident against ongoing tensions with Russian authorities over Telegram’s refusal to provide encryption keys and the platform’s bans in Russia and elsewhere, rather than linking it specifically to his prior role at VK. Durov said the experience changed his outlook, and observers have compared it to other high-profile alleged poisonings of critics of the Russian state.