In 2018, Telegram CEO Pavel casually had lunch with President Emmanuel Macron in France. At that lunch, Macron, hoping to woo Pavel, invited him to move Telegram’s base to Paris.
Hell, he even offered to make Pavel a French citizen. But Pavel wasn’t biting. He said thanks but no thanks, and that was that. Just a year before the fancy lunch, French and UAE intelligence agencies were not feeling so friendly toward Pavel.
They saw him as a threat, a loose cannon they couldn’t control. So they did what any paranoid government does when it feels threatened—they hacked his phone.
The joint espionage mission, dubbed “Purple Music,” targeted Pavel’s iPhone, hoping to crack open his secrets. But why go after Pavel in the first place? What had him on their radar?
Why they targeted Pavel’s phone
First off, let’s talk terrorism. Telegram had become a favorite tool for all the wrong people. French intelligence agencies were deeply concerned that groups like the Islamic State were using Telegram to plan attacks and recruit people.
To them, this was a hotbed for terrorist activity. A security official, who chose to stay anonymous, explained that they needed “a better understanding of how these groups were operating on Telegram.” Hacking Pavel’s phone seemed like the key to getting that inside scoop.
Then there’s Pavel’s track record with law enforcement. The guy wasn’t exactly known for playing nice with authorities. Telegram ignored subpoenas and court orders like they were spam emails, letting them pile up in some random inbox nobody checked.
This really pissed off the French. They saw Telegram’s stance as a giant middle finger to their efforts to clamp down on illegal activity. One French intelligence source bluntly said:
“We needed to know what the hell was going on, and we weren’t getting any help from them.”
Pavel’s defiance and growing popularity
But it wasn’t just France that had a bone to pick with Pavel. The Russian government wasn’t a fan either. Back in 2014, Pavel fled Russia because he refused to give in to their demands to shut down opposition communities on VKontakte, the social network he founded.
Russia wanted control, and Pavel wasn’t going to hand it over. And then, there’s Telegram’s rising fame. It had become a global phenomenon. With that came more scrutiny, especially from European countries like France.
They were worried about data breaches and security issues, and they weren’t exactly thrilled with Telegram’s “we do what we want” attitude.
Pavel’s refusal to play ball with any government’s requests for data made him a controversial figure—a bit of a rebel in the tech industry, if you will.
So, while the French might have once seen Pavel as a potential ally—a tech mogul worth wooing—they clearly had a change of heart.
Or maybe they always had him in their sights and just played nice to see what they could get out of him. Either way, Pavel’s in a tight spot now, and it doesn’t look like things are going to get easier anytime soon.
