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 📊

🎙 A week ago, Tucker Carlson published an interview with me about what happened in France. It was covered by media in many countries — except, interestingly, in France. None of the French newspapers mentioned the interview. 🤐

📰 However, the French media hasn’t lost interest in Telegram. Last week, Le Monde, the country’s main newspaper, invited its readers to report whether they watch pirated football matches on Telegram. This attempt to crowdsource a negative story about us appears to be part of a broader strategy. 😐

😑 In just the 7 weeks following my arrest in Paris, Le Monde published 40 negative articles about Telegram. In violation of journalistic ethics, they did not ask us for a comment in 37 of these 40 articles and always ignored the factual corrections we sent them. 🤦‍♂️

📣 Such a media environment is alarming. This is why platforms like Telegram are so important — we enable people to access all points of view and decide for themselves. We believe people are smart and can be trusted with the unfiltered truth. ✉️

👨‍💻 Telegram’s looking for an Android dev — who’ll earn $1M / year after tax. 🧻

🥇 The only way in is to win our coding contest that ends on July 11. The task? Implement the animation from this mockup in our open-source Android app. 🤖 https://t.me/contest/420

🗽 The Independence Day gifts sold out within minutes. It took just 45 seconds for all 15,000 🎁 Crystal Eagles (around $100 each) to be claimed. The 300,000 🎁 Statues of Liberty were gone in under 5 minutes. Lastly, all 500,000 🎁 Liberty Torches sold out in just 10 minutes.

🎁 @SnoopDogg’s digital collectibles drop on Telegram sold out in just 30 minutes today, generating $12M in sales. 🎁

🎁 Nearly 1M unique NFTs, inspired by Snoop’s iconic style, were gone in record time.

🎁 Blockchain minting and the secondary market go live in 21 days. It’s going to be wild. 🎁

↗️ If you want to reach your full potential and maintain clarity of mind, stay away from addictive substances. My success and health are the result of 20+ years of complete abstinence from alcohol, tobacco, coffee, pills, and illegal drugs. Short-term pleasure isn’t worth your future. 🚭

Here’s what I said about this 7.5 years ago — still true today.

➕ If you’re a student choosing what to focus on, pick MATH. It will teach you to relentlessly rely on your own brain, think logically, break down problems, and solve them step by step in the right order. That’s the core skill you’ll need to build companies and manage projects. 🏢