Telegram has signed a deal with Elon Musk’s Xai to incorporate Groke AI into the fabric of its encrypted messaging platform.
This is more than just a friendly collaboration. Zai puts serious money on the table – a cool $300 million, a mix of hard cash and equity. Also, in the case of Telegram, they pocket 50% of the subscription money Grok is drawn into through the app.
This leap into the world of AI could not come at a more interesting time due to telegrams. CEO Pavel Durov is struggling with a rather serious legal headache, with the government in certain corners of the globe giving the platform a side eye, but the company’s bank balance looks healthy.
In fact, Telegram is preparing to raise at least $1.5 billion by issuing five-year bonds. At a rather attractive 9% yield, these bonds are designed to help you buy back some of your debts from the 2021 bond issuance. Famous investors like BlackRock, Mubadala and Citadel are still enthusiastic and suggest they are looking at a bright future for messaging services.
And the numbers tell the story of an important comeback. With your heart back in 2023, Telegram was nursing a loss of $173 million. Fast forward to 2024, they turned it over to their heads and deposited $540 million in profits from $1.4 billion in revenue in the bank. They haven’t stopped there either with optimistic predictions that they’ll point to $700 million in profits from a $2 billion revenue pot in 2025.
So, what does Grok actually do to telegram users? We hope that Xai’s conversational AI will bring an entirely new layer of smart to the platform. This includes supercharged information searching, drafting messages, and automated tricks of all sorts. It’s a play that helps Telegram unlock fresh monetization opportunities and compete with the meta.
However, all of Telegram’s AI integrations are happening against a rather dramatic background. Pavel Durov, who is at the helm of the company, finds himself in the hot water.
In August 2024, Doloff was arrested in France and later charged with 12 charges. These are not minor infringements either. They include serious accusations such as accomplice in disseminating child exploitation material and drug trafficking, all related to the allegations that Telegram was not sufficient to conclude its contents.
Doloff was initially stuck in France, but by March 2025 he was given a nod to leave the country for at least a while. Everyone guesses what happens next in these legal battles, but that’s a big cloud hanging from the company.
And that is not a personal legal woes for Doloff. The entire government is beginning to lose patience. For example, Vietnam has ordered the Ministry of Science and Technology’s internet provider to pull plugs with telegrams. Their reasoning? They say the platform has become a hotbed of crime.
Vietnamese officials believe that 68% of the domestic telegram channels and groups are not good and are involved in everything from fraud to drug dealing. Telegram said he was surprised by the move, claiming that he was always trying to play the ball on legal demands from Vietnam.
Returning to the Xai Partnership, it is a clear signal that Telegram looks to the future and sees AI as its central pillar. The money and shared income promises involved show how potentially they can be seen in both hands in the hands of millions of Telegram users.
The next 12 months will be a real test of the telegram. Can the company be able to become a responsible player on the global stage, while also innovating the way forward?
(Photo from non-flash)
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