Last Updated on August 3, 2022 by Bitfinsider
According to a statement published by MicroStrategy on Tuesday afternoon, Michael Saylor is stepping down from his role as the company’s CEO to take on the role of Executive Chairman and focus on the business’s bitcoin strategy.
Saylor has been the organization’s CEO since since MicroStategy was established in 1989. The cloud software provider subsequently went public in 1998.
The current president and previous CFO of the company, Phong Le, will take over as CEO of MicroStrategy, the publicly traded company with the largest Bitcoin reserve.
The announcement comes at the same time as the company’s second quarter earnings, which showed a 2.7% decline in total revenues year over year.
In contrast to the $126 million forecast, MicroStrategy’s Q2 sales was $122.1 million. Losses for the quarter totaled $918,1 million, of which $917,8 million was used to cover impairment expenses brought on by the decline in the value of Bitcoin.
As of the 30th of June, MicroStrategy stated that it had 129,699 BTC worth $1,988 billion. At an average price of $30,700, the company has already spent almost $4 billion on bitcoin.
Superfan of Bitcoin
Michael Saylor has become a fervent supporter of the most sought-after digital asset in the world since MicroStrategy said it would start putting Bitcoin on the company’s balance sheet in August 2020.
Regarding the new transition, Saylor said: “As Executive Chairman, I will be able to concentrate more on our Bitcoin acquisition strategy and related Bitcoin advocacy projects, while Phong will be entrusted with managing the company’s general operations.”
According to Michael Saylor, by splitting the roles of CEO and Chairman, their two businesses will be better able to achieve their shared mission of “acquiring and holding bitcoin and building our enterprise analytics software business.”
Stock Value of MicroStrategy is Under Intense Pressure
After Bitcoin’s retracement this year, MicroStrategy’s stock has been under a lot of pressure. Michael Saylor’s Bitcoin bet has received encouragement from crypto enthusiasts, but some crypto specialists do not think it was a good move for a publicly traded company.
At a notional value of $1.35 billion, a record 51% of the company’s outstanding shares are being sold short, according to a Bloomberg article citing data from financial analytics firm S3 Partners.
The analytics firm reported that the total number of shares shorted rose by 1.2 million in just the past 30 days, to an all-time high of 4.73 million shares.
Michael Saylor, in the meantime, pretended everything was OK and continued to tweet as normal. Over 2.5 million people follow his Twitter account, where he frequently extols the merits of Bitcoin.
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Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the author, or any people mentioned in this article, are for informational purposes only, and they do not constitute financial, investment, legal, tax or other advice. Investing in or trading cryptocurrency or stocks comes with a risk of financial loss.
