The man making billions from the wildest bitcoin bet
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Michael Saylor’s company doesn’t market any hot products or services. What he and MicroStrategy do is sell new shares and debt, at a pace rarely seen in corporate history.
Saylor plows all that money into bitcoin, vowing to keep doing it, over and over. MicroStrategy shares are up about 690% in the past year and the 59-year-old executive chairman’s approximately 10% stake is worth about $9.7 billion, while he personally owns an additional $1.9 billion or so of bitcoin. Saylor has emerged as the public face of the recent bitcoin craze, with nearly 4 million followers on X.
To celebrate bitcoin topping $100,000, Saylor hosted a New Year’s Eve party for several hundred members of the crypto community at his waterfront, Miami-area estate, near his luxury yacht. A half-dozen dancers dressed in gold performed. Celebrities mingled with investing luminaries, including Bill Miller, the former Legg Mason fund manager; Peter Briger, chairman of Fortress Investment Group; and Mark Casey, a key portfolio manager at Capital Group.
The event was livestreamed on YouTube to tens of thousands of bitcoin fanatics as Saylor, in a black blazer and a bitcoin T-shirt, presided. Enthusiasm for Saylor’s company is so rabid it has resulted in a head-scratching situation: MicroStrategy owns about $47 billion of bitcoin, but its shares are worth about $97 billion. It’s as if investors are paying $2 for a $1 bill.
Just as surprising: Sophisticated investors have been among the biggest buyers, including mutual-fund power Capital Group, which owned about 8% of the company as of Sept. 30, and Norges Bank Investment Management, Norway’s $1.5 trillion sovereign fund, which owned nearly 1%. Fans say the premium reflects
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