A Billionaire Who Made His Fortune In AI Has Renounced His Russian Citizenship
- 6.11.2026, 17:40
- 2,574
He received a Kazakhstani passport.
Alexander Mashrabov , co-founder of the AI company Higgsfield , has received Kazakhstani citizenship. The corresponding decree was signed on October 30 by the country’s president Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, according to the country’s Minister of Digital Development Zhaslan Madiev. “Kazakhstan has one more billionaire!” he wrote, posting a photo of the passport presentation. According to Madiev, the republic’s authorities are interested in attracting entrepreneurs in the field of artificial intelligence, writes The Moscow Times.
Mashrov lives in San Francisco and visits Kazakhstan several times a year. After he received his Kazakh passport, a Higgsfield spokesperson told Bloomberg (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-11-06/another-russian-tycoon-gets-kazakh-passport-amid-push-for-talent) that the entrepreneur had filed an application to renounce his Russian citizenship. Kazakhstan does not allow dual citizenship.
In August 2026, Higgsfield raised $400 million in funding from DST Global, Goldman Sachs, Intel Capital, Liberty Global, and other investors. Following this, the company was valued at $5.4 billion. As Forbes reported, Mashrabov may own about 20% of the startup, and his stake is worth more than $1 billion.
Mashrobov grew up in Chelyabinsk and attended Physics and Mathematics Lyceum No. 31. He then enrolled at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT). While still a student, he worked as a machine learning engineer at Yandex and was involved in the development of search technologies. In 2018, Mashrabov, together with his high school friend Grigory Tkachenko, founded AI Factory—a startup that animates photos and videos using neural networks. In January 2020, the company was acquired by the American firm Snap (owner of Snapchat) for $166 million. Following the deal, Mashrabov joined Snap, where he headed the generative AI division.
In the fall of 2023, he co-founded Higgsfield—a platform for creating images and videos using AI—with Kazakhstani machine learning specialist Yerzat Dulat. The startup recruited its first team of developers in Kazakhstan, where it also found its first investor. Currently, the company’s major engineering center is located in Almaty, while its headquarters is in San Francisco. By August 2026, Higgsfield’s annual revenue had reached $700 million, up from $20 million a year earlier. The platform’s clients include 390 of the largest companies on the U.S. Fortune 500 list. The service’s user base has exceeded 40 million.
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