Catenaa, Thursday, May 29, 2025-Telegram is seeking to raise $1.5 billion through a bond issuance, just days after securing a $300 million partnership deal with Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence firm xAI, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The bond offering will reportedly include contributions from existing backers BlackRock and Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala, with Citadel expected to join the investor group.
The messaging app’s financial position has strengthened following its deal with xAI to integrate the Grok AI chatbot. Telegram will receive 50% of subscription revenue generated via its platform. CEO Pavel Durov confirmed the collaboration Wednesday, adding that no Telegram user data would be used to train Grok.
The new five-year bonds will carry a 9% yield and will help Telegram buy back remaining debt from bonds issued in 2021, of which $400 million has already been repurchased.
Telegram, long affiliated with the crypto community, remains under scrutiny after Durov’s arrest in France earlier this year on 12 charges, including money laundering and trafficking offenses. He departed the country in March while under judicial supervision.
In related developments, Toncoin, the native token of the Open Network (TON), surged nearly 19% after news of the xAI deal and the bond plan.
TON’s market cap now stands at $8.6 billion. The independent TON Foundation, which oversees the Layer 1 blockchain, also announced the hiring of former Visa executive Nikola Plecas to lead its global payments expansion.
The foundation’s ambitions align with Telegram’s deepening integration of digital assets and AI tech across its platform.
