Michael Saylor made the headlines in the past two years as one of the biggest Bitcoin bulls out there. He was once again the talk of the financial world on Tuesday, but this time for a completely different reason. MicroStrategy, the company he founded in 1989, announced that Saylor is stepping down as its CEO after 33 years in the position.
Saylor’s exit is closely tied with his strategy to invest most of the company’s money in cryptocurrency. Since August of 2020, MicroStrategy has been aggressively stockpiling Bitcoin, investing close to $4 billion and acquiring roughly 129,218 Bitcoins. However, the gamble didn’t pay off as the recent crypto market crash plummeted Bitcoin’s value.
Releasing its Q2 results this week, MicroStrategy revealed that it had $918.1 million in losses. Out of that number, $917.8 million resulted from the company’s Bitcoin stash. This was also the seventh out of the past eight quarters in which MicroStrategy recorded losses. And the better part of them can be directly traced to Saylor’s bullish attitude towards Bitcoin.
After ousting Saylor as CEO, MicroStrategy appointed president Phong Le as the new CEO. It remains unclear whether the company’s attitude towards Bitcoin will change and in what regard. However, it appears that Saylor, who transitioned to the role of executive chairman, will make sure that doesn’t happen so quickly.
“The new executive structure means I can even more enthusiastically focus on communications and strategy and bitcoin advocacy and evangelism,” said Saylor after the news was made public.
