MicroStrategy’s Saylor To Step Down as CEO To Double Down on Buying Bitcoin

The company’s president, Phong Le, is set to assume the chief executive role as Saylor becomes executive chairman

article-image

MicroStrategy’s Michael Saylor | Source: Michael.com

share
  • MicroStrategy held 129,699 bitcoins — about $2 billion — as of June 30, which reflects cumulative impairment losses of roughly $2 billion since acquisition
  • The company’s core business is “not impacted by the near-term price fluctuations of bitcoin,” Le says

Michael Saylor is stepping down from his long running role as MicroStrategy’s chief executive. 

Saylor is set to become the company’s executive chairman, a move company executives said would allow the outspoken Bitcoin bull to focus more on the firm’s bitcoin acquisition strategy. 

Saylor has served as CEO and chairman of MicroStrategy’s board since founding the company in 1989. He took it public in 1998. Phong Le, president of the Virginia-based business intelligence firm since July 2020, will become MicroStrategy’s CEO on Aug. 8.

Saylor said during the company’s earnings call on Tuesday that the matter of CEO succession has been “carefully considered and planned for at the board level for many years.”

Le called the leadership reshuffling a “business-as-usual transition,” noting that he doesn’t plan on making any significant changes to the company.

“I believe 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,” Saylor said in a statement. 

Since joining MicroStrategy in 2015, Le has also worked as the firm’s chief financial officer and chief operating officer. 

“We continue to see the durability of our enterprise analytics business and the attractiveness of our cloud platform in our results this past quarter,” Le said in a statement. “With total revenue growth on a constant currency basis, and 36% year-over-year growth in subscription services revenues, our business remains resilient even in light of the continuing macroeconomic uncertainties.”

MicroStrategy has the largest bitcoin (BTC) stash of any public company. It held 129,699 BTC — worth about $2 billion — as of June 30, which reflects cumulative losses of roughly $2 billion.

As volatility ramped up in June, MicroStrategy purchased an additional 480 bitcoin (BTC) for roughly $10 million — an average price of $20,817 per bitcoin.

MicroStrategy reported a net loss for the second quarter of nearly $1.1 billion, due in part to digital asset impairment charges of $918 million.

Saylor said on the call that since Aug. 11, 2020 — the day the company announced the start of its bitcoin acquisition strategy — MicroStrategy’s stock and bitcoin are up 123% and 94%, respectively.

“We seek to acquire and hold bitcoin long-term and we do not currently plan to engage in sales of bitcoin,” Le added. “We have a long-term time horizon, and the core business is not impacted by the near-term price fluctuations of bitcoin.”

The company’s declaration to continue to buy and hold bitcoin comes after Tesla sold roughly 75% of its bitcoin in the second quarter as part of conversions that added $936 million to its balance sheet. 

MicroStrategy’s stock price closed Tuesday at $278.26. The stock is down about 50% year to date, but up 48% in the past month.

This is a developing story.


Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

Tags

Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily, with Byron Gilliam.

Upcoming Events

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

Research Report Templates.jpg

Research

Figure, founded by former SoFi CEO Mike Cagney, has emerged as a leader in onchain RWAs, with ~$17.5B publicly tokenized. The platform’s ecosystem volume is growing ~40% YoY as it expands beyond HELOCs into student loans, DSCR loans, unsecured loans, bankruptcy claims, and more. Operationally, Figure cuts average loan production cost by ~93% and compresses median funding time from ~42 days to ~10, creating a durable speed-and-cost advantage.

article-image

Former White House crypto official Bo Hines is expected to be the CEO of the new project

article-image

In bonds, stablecoins and billionaires, a reminder of what makes crypto special

article-image

21Shares exec says CPI and PPI data supports a Fed rate cut, with market leaning toward a 25bps decrease

article-image

The Ethereum co-founder suggested LINEA holders would be eligible for other airdrops in cryptic tweet

article-image

The layer-2’s biggest release yet brings benefits — but a post-upgrade outage caused a chain reorg

article-image

Crypto is shifting into risk-on mode — pump.fun dominates meme activity, while Lido leans on treasury maneuvers