Telegram CEO gives his view on Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and Mark Zuckerberg

Telegram cofounder and CEO Pavel Durov offered a quick personality assessment of some of his biggest tech rivals in a recent interview, calling Elon Musk “very emotional” and saying Sam Altman may not have the technical chops.

Durov, who was arrested last year after French authorities accused him of being complicit in letting criminal activity thrive on Telegram, pushed against the comparison some make between himself and Musk.

“We are very different. Elon runs several companies at once, while I only run one,” he told the French outlet Le Point. “Elon can be very emotional, while I try to think deeply before acting.” He added that Musk’s perceived weaknesses, however, could also contribute to his strengths.

Both men have fathered many children — Musk has at least 11 known kids, and Durov told Le Point that he has more than 100 through sperm donation. All of them, Durov said, will get a sliver of his billions (he’s worth nearly $14 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index).

When asked about Mark Zuckerberg‘s qualities and flaws, Durov said the Meta CEO “adapts well and quickly follows trends, but he seems to lack fundamental values that he would remain faithful to, regardless of changes in political climate or fashion in the tech sector.”

Zuckerberg has made notable changes at Meta in recent months and since President Donald Trump came back into office, including ending diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts and third-party fact-checking. Durov has recently criticized the Meta-owned rival WhatsApp, calling it a “cheap, watered-down imitation of Telegram.” A spokesperson for WhatsApp previously told BI that the app was “born with privacy in our DNA long before Telegram came along.”

In terms of Altman’s qualities and flaws, Durov praised his social skills, saying they’ve allowed him to make crucial alliances related to ChatGPT.

“But some wonder if his technical expertise is still sufficient, now that his co-founder Ilya and many other scientists have left OpenAI,” Durov said, referring to the company’s co-founder and former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever. He added that it will “be interesting” to track whether ChatGPT can stay ahead in the competitive world of AI chatbots.

Representatives for Musk, Zuckerberg, and Altman did not immediately respond to Business Insider’s request for comment.

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