📰 Yesterday, a French newspaper claimed that my detainment in France last summer ‘finally’ forced Telegram to comply with European rules. This is false. Telegram has always been compliant with EU laws. 🇪🇺

👮‍♂️ After last August, it was the French police that finally started to ‘comply with European rules’ — by sending their requests to Telegram in the legal way described by the EU’s Digital Services Act. As a result, French courts have been able to receive IP addresses of criminal suspects from Telegram. 🧑‍⚖️

🌐 The information about this legal way to reach us could be obtained on our apps, website or just by googling ‘telegram eu police’ — long before my detainment in France. Why the French courts and police had been ignoring this process clearly defined by EU law is still a mystery to us, but it’s unfair to say that Telegram somehow ignored European rules. Paradoxically, it was French law enforcement that for some reason had been ignoring them. 🤔

🇫🇷 I love France and respect its police force, so I didn’t want to embarrass anyone by pointing out the above. But I cannot ignore when such obvious misinformation about Telegram is spread. 🙅‍♂️

🥈 Telegram is the 2nd most popular messaging app in the world. We spend millions of dollars every year to ensure our compliance with laws across the globe. In the EU in particular, we always start preparing to comply with laws years before they even come into force. 🗓

🎁🎁 Happy Easter — the day of Freedom and Rebirth! 🎁

😲 Last month, France nearly banned encryption. A law requiring messaging apps to implement a backdoor for police access to private messages was passed by the Senate. Luckily, it was shot down by the National Assembly. Yet 3 days ago the Paris Police Prefect advocated for it again. 🤦‍♂️

The members of the National Assembly were wise to reject a law that would have made France the first country in the world to strip its citizens of their right to privacy. Even countries that many Europeans view as lacking in freedoms have never banned encryption. Why?

Because it’s technically impossible to guarantee that only the police can access a backdoor. Once introduced, a backdoor can be exploited by other parties — from foreign agents to hackers. As a result, the private messages of all law abiding citizens can get compromised.

Aimed at preventing drug trafficking, the law wouldn’t have helped fight crime anyway. Even if mainstream encrypted apps had been weakened by a backdoor, criminals could still communicate securely through dozens of smaller apps — and become even harder to trace due to VPNs.

This is why, as I’ve said before, Telegram would rather exit a market than undermine encryption with backdoors and violate basic human rights. Unlike some of our competitors, we don’t trade privacy for market share.

In it’s 12-year history, Telegram has never disclosed a single byte of private messages. In accordance with the EU Digital Services Act, if provided with a valid court order, Telegram would only disclose the IP addresses and phone numbers of criminal suspects — not messages.

Last month, freedom prevailed. But it was a reminder: we must keep explaining to lawmakers that encryption isn’t built to protect criminals — it protects the privacy and safety of ordinary people. Losing that protection would be tragic.

The battle is far from over. This month, the European Commission proposed a similar initiative to add backdoors to messaging apps. No country is immune to the slow erosion of freedoms. Every day, those freedoms come under attack — and every day, we must defend them. 🛡

🎆 The sky over Dubai has never looked as good as it did today! 🔵

📞 Telegram's latest update brings you ultra-secure group calls. They are protected not just with end-to-end encryption — but with blockchain-like technology to ensure that no one can secretly join as a listener! 🤫

🧠 You can now add up to 200 people to any Telegram call (including 1-1 calls) using links, QR-codes, or direct invitations. And if you need to go beyond 200 members in a call, Telegram voice and video chats in groups support tens of thousands participants. 📣

🎁 We’ve just launched the Telegram Gift Marketplace, so you can instantly buy gifts from other users or sell your own. Telegram Gifts are NFTs — unique collectibles on the TON blockchain. Initially sold for just a few dollars, some of them are now worth tens of thousands 💰

A Western European government (guess which 🥖) approached Telegram, asking us to silence conservative voices in Romania ahead of today’s presidential elections. I flatly refused. Telegram will not restrict the freedoms of Romanian users or block their political channels.

You can’t “defend democracy” by destroying democracy. You can’t “fight election interference” by interfering with elections. You either have freedom of speech and fair elections — or you don’t. And the Romanian people deserve both. 🇷🇴

🔼 Telegram climbed up in the rankings of the world’s most downloaded apps in Q1 2025, while all Meta apps (WA, IG, FB, Threads) dropped 🔽

Let’s keep it going like this 🙂

🎉 Telegram Premium now has over 15 million paid subscribers. The number has doubled in just one year. Thank you for going Premium! ⭐️

🔥 This summer, Telegram users will gain access to the best AI technology on the market. Elon Musk and I have agreed to a 1-year partnership to bring xAI’s chatbot Grok to our billion+ users and integrate it across all Telegram apps 🤝

💪 This also strengthens Telegram’s financial position: we will receive $300M in cash and equity from xAI, plus 50% of the revenue from xAI subscriptions sold via Telegram 💰

Telegram + Grok = ❤️📈🏆

🏆 Telegram has successfully issued $1.7B in 5-year bonds at a 9% interest rate, maturing in June 2030. More than $950M of our previous bonds (due March 2026) were exchanged for the new issuance.

🙏 The response from investors was phenomenal. We’re deeply grateful to the investment funds that have supported us over the years. Due to strong demand, we expanded the offering beyond the initial $1.5B — yet demand still far exceeded what we could allocate.

🪙 With this new funding, we now have more than enough resources to repay the remaining portion of our 2026 bonds. Given Telegram’s profitability, we are in an excellent financial position going forward. 😙

Meet Threaded Chats — a simple yet powerful way to organize conversations by topic or sender. Already available in large groups (where admins can enable it) and in the brand-new channel inboxes — yes, channels can now receive direct messages from users, and even charge for them if they wish. Enjoy! 😎

🎙✂️ Trimming voice messages — today on Telegram. In a few years, everywhere else with the exact same UI 🥇💅

🆒 In case you missed it — the latest Telegram update is epic:

— 📥 Direct messages in channels
— 🖼 HD photo sharing
— 🗂 Topic tabs in group chats
— ✂️ Voice message trimming
— 📊 Expanded poll options

We’ve been receiving great feedback from the owners of large channels and groups. And this is just the beginning — direct messages in channels lay the foundation for much more in the weeks ahead 🚀

📈 Telegram Collectible Gifts went up in price several times in the past 30 days 🆙

💚 TON is now the #1 blockchain by daily NFT trading volume (or #2 after Ethereum if off-chain trades are not counted) 🏆

🔗 Sources — here and here 📊