en
Back to the list

MicroStrategy Co-Founder Says He Will “Focus More” on Bitcoin After Abandoning CEO Role

source-logo  tokenist.com 03 August 2022 10:11, UTC

Michael Saylor said in a tweet he plans to “focus more on Bitcoin” in his next job, just a day after the entrepreneur stepped down as MicroStrategy’s CEO. According to MicroStrategy’s statement released Tuesday, Saylor will become the company’s Executive Chairman, while current president, Phong Le, is set to succeed Saylor at the top role.

In my next job, I intend to focus more on #Bitcoin.

— Michael Saylor⚡️ (@saylor) August 3, 2022

Saylor Stays at MicroStrategy as Executive Chairman

MicroStrategy co-founder Michael Saylor tweeted on Tuesday he intends to focus more on Bitcoin in his next job. The tweet came one day after Saylor announced he will be stepping down as the Chief Executive Officer of the business intelligence company, a role he held since 1989.

After the leadership change, Saylor will stay at MicroStrategy as the company’s Executive Chairman, while president Phong Le will become the new CEO. In his statement, Saylor said he thinks that “splitting the roles of Chairman and CEO will enable us to better pursue our two corporate strategies of acquiring and holding bitcoin and growing our enterprise analytics software business.”

While his decision to abandon the CEO role might have indicated MicroStrategy could abandon its Bitcoin play, Saylor’s new tweet suggests exactly the opposite. The 57-year-old did not provide more details about his future plans.

Join our Telegram group and never miss a breaking digital asset story.

MicroStrategy Reports $1B Loss in New Earnings Results

While MicroStrategy’s primary operations involve providing enterprise software and cloud-based services, Saylor has previously described the company as the first and only BTC spot exchange-traded fund (ETF) in the United States.

“We’re kind of like your nonexistent spot ETF,”

he said at the Bitcoin 2022 conference in Miami earlier this year.

MicroStrategy has been buying Bitcoin regularly for the past two years. The Tysons, Virginia-based company invested a total of about $4 billion in Bitcoin so far, at an average price of $30,700.

In June, shares of MicroStrategy saw a sharp decline after Bitcoin fell below the $23,000 mark. The broader crypto market has seen a significant drawdown this year amid raging inflation levels, aggressive interest rate hikes by global central banks, and geopolitical tensions.

MicroStrategy previously used the company debt to buy Bitcoin and several months ago, Saylor borrowed $205 million from Silvergate Bank to purchase more of the cryptocurrency. The loan was not only collateralized by bitcoins but it will also be used to purchase additional amounts of BTC.

MicroStrategy also released Q2 financial results Tuesday. The company reported it held net losses of about $1.062 billion in the second quarter, $917.8 million of which was related to impairment losses on MicroStrategy’s substantial Bitcoin holdings.

Finance is changing.
Learn how, with Five Minute Finance.
A weekly newsletter that covers the big trends in FinTech and Decentralized Finance.
Awesome
You’ve subscribed.
You’re well on your way to being in the know.

Do you think Michael Saylor will start a new venture to double down on Bitcoin? Let us know in the comments below.

tokenist.com