Alexander Mashrabov received a Kazakhstan passport and applied to renounce Russian citizenship

Mashrabov was personally handed the Kazakhstan passport by the republic’s Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development, Zhaslan Madiyev, the publication writes in a report by “Agentstvo”. According to Madiyev, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev signed the decree granting citizenship on October 30. On Instagram, the minister wrote: “There is one more billionaire in Kazakhstan”.

Kazakhstan’s legislation does not allow dual citizenship. A Higgsfield spokesperson told Bloomberg that Mashrabov has already submitted an application to renounce Russian citizenship.

According to an analysis by “Agentstvo”, conducted with the help of leaks and the state services portal, Mashrabov’s Russian passport is still valid. According to the same leaks, he was born in Chelyabinsk and spent his childhood there. Later, Mashrabov worked at Yandex.

In 2018, Mashrabov and his childhood friend Grigory Tkachenko launched the startup AI Factory, which animates photos of human faces. In 2020, the company was acquired by the American Snap for $166 million, after which Mashrabov moved to the corporation and began developing generative AI.

In 2023, he became a co-founder of the startup Higgsfield, which makes AI videos. In 2026, the company was valued at $5.4 billion, and Mashrabov’s stake, according to Forbes, is 20%. Such an estimate meant that Mashrabov would likely take part in the next billionaire ranking, Forbes wrote in August. Kazakhstan Forbes wrote that he moved to the US more than six years ago and now works between San Francisco and Almaty.