Durov clashes with Musk over slavery origins on X

Telegram founder Pavel Durov has entered into a debate with U.S. billionaire Elon Musk on X, defending Slavic peoples after Musk shared a post about the origin of the word “slave.”

Durov noted that the term comes from the Old French esclave, which once meant both “Slav” and “slave,” adding that in the Middle Ages Western Europeans, mainly Franks, enslaved large numbers of Slavs.

“No Slavic state has ever attacked Western Europe without cause, while the reverse has happened many times,” Durov wrote.

His post was a response to Musk’s publication featuring a chat with Grok about the etymology of “slave.” Thousands of users reacted, including American Shannon Pretzel, who argued that “whites” should also receive reparations for historical slavery — a comment Musk endorsed.