Micheal Saylor CEO of MicroStrategy Is Stepping Down

Micheal Saylor announced today that he would be stepping down as CEO of Cloud software company MicroStrategy.

Saylor, a Bitcoin maximalist, has worked at the company since 1989, serving as the company's chief executive; his departure will not see him leave the company but move into a new position as executive chairman.

According to Saylor, the new CEO, Phong Le, who formally served as the company’s president, will take the role starting August 8th. The move allows Saylor to dedicate more of his effort toward the company's Bitcoin holdings.

"I will remain an executive officer of the company and chairman of the Board of Directors, as well as assuming the chair of investments committee and leading our bitcoin acquisition strategy," Saylor said on the company's 2022 Q2 earnings call Tuesday. "My focus is bitcoin advocacy and education, like with the Bitcoin Mining Council, and being spokesperson and envoy to the global bitcoin community."

Saylor described the move as "expanding and reorganizing the managing team" and a decision that has been made for seven years.

“It was carefully considered and planned at the board leadership for many years," he said. "It was clear to company watchers that [Le] was heir apparent."

Le was asked what changes he planned on making and responded, "this is a business-as-usual transition."

“We’re very aligned in running an enterprise software company and in Bitcoin acquisition strategy," Le said. "I don’t have any significant changes planned — the biggest change we’ve observed is [Chief Financial Officer Andrew Kang] joining us two months ago to run the financial organization.”

"The three of us make a great team and work together well," he added.

A press release was published just before the earnings call announcing the move. “I believe that splitting the roles of Chairman and CEO will enable us to pursue better our two corporate strategies of acquiring and holding Bitcoin and growing our enterprise analytics software business,” Saylor said in the release. “As Executive Chairman, I will be able to focus more on our Bitcoin acquisition strategy and related bitcoin advocacy initiatives while Phong will be empowered as CEO to manage overall corporate operations.”

Microstrategy holds 129,699 BTC, or about $2.99 billion worth at today's prices, per the company report, with the average purchase price being around $30,664 a coin, which leaves the company currently in the red on its investment.

Shortly after the move's announcement, Microstargey revealed that it would take a non-cash digital impairment charge of $917.8 million in the second quarter of 2022.