Michael J Saylor Net Worth, Education, Career, and Bitcoin Holdings

Michael J Saylor Biography

Education and Early Career of Michael Saylor

Though Michael Saylor was born on February 4, 1965, in Lincoln, Nebraska, he grew up in Dayton, Ohio. Since his father was an Air Force chief master sergeant, Saylor spent most of his childhood in Air Force bases around the world.

Saylor graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1987. By enrolling on an Air Force ROTC scholarship, he graduated with a double major in aeronautics and astronautics. Before founding his own company MicroStrategy, Saylor worked with other companies for a few years.

MicroStrategy CEO Michael J Saylor

Along with his co-founder Sanju Bansal, Saylor started MicroStrategy company which develops software for data mining and business intelligence. The fact that MicroStrategy won a $10 million contract with McDonald’s in 1992 is noteworthy. After 6 years, Saylor took the company public with MSTR ticker symbol and 4 million shares. Each share’s price was $12, which doubled on the first day of trading.

By 2000, Michael Saylor’s net worth amounted to $7 billion which made him the wealthiest man in Washington DC. Saylor received the “Software Entrepreneur of the Year” award by Ernst & Young in 1997 and was listed by Red Herring Magazine in its “Top 10 Entrepreneurs for 1998”. He was also featured in the MIT Technology Review as an “Innovator Under 35”.

Saylor is also part of a scientific research institute, the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico. After serving for more than 3 decades, he resigned and left MicroStrategy in 2022 to focus more on Bitcoin acquisition strategy and Bitcoin advocacy initiatives.

Bitcoin Holdings of MicroStrategy

During the Pandemic in 2020, MicroStrategy and Michael Saylor made headlines when he invested $250 million to acquire Bitcoin as a reserve asset. Saylor continued to purchase large amounts of Bitcoin since then and became a popular individual in the crypto industry. Being a strong advocate of Bitcoin, he believes Bitcoin acts as a hedge against inflation.

In the subsequent years, Saylor purchased more Bitcoin to store as a reserve asset for MicroStrategy. The company currently owns 190,000 Bitcoins, which a recent purchase of 850 Bitcoins worth $37.5 million in January, 2024. This makes a total of 0.9% of Bitcoins supply. As the Bitcoin price crossed the $50,000 mark recently in February second week, the BTC holdings of MicroStrategy amounted to $9.5 billion, making it the second-largest holder of Bitcoin.

However, Saylor was also one of the people who believed Bitcoin days were numbered around a decade back. In 2013, he even tweeted saying that Bitcoin will eventually go in the way of online gambling. He underwent a significant change of heart and even launched a Bitcoin Academy page on the MicroStrategy website with a banner “Bitcoin is Hope” to spread awareness of cryptocurrencies.

Personal Life of Michael Saylor

Michael Saylor enjoys the life of being a multimillionaire alone. He isn’t yet married and his co-founder Sanju Bansal once shared that Michael isn’t involved in anything else other than his work and business.

Saylor is also a philanthropist and donated millions of dollars to various causes such as refugee relief, education, environmental conservation, and more through the Saylor Foundation. He even established Saylor Academy to provide free education as part of the Saylor Foundation.

In 2012, Saylor also wrote a book titled “The Mobile Wave: How Mobile Intelligence Will Change Everything.” He discussed mobile technology trends like their impact on commerce, healthcare, education, and the development of the world. The book appeared on the New York Times Best Seller list and even ranked 5 on the Wall Street Journal’s best sellers list in 2012.

Michael Saylor’s Net Worth

Michael Saylor’s net worth amounts to $1.5 billion according to Forbes as of February 2024. Even though he is still a billionaire, he lost a significant amount of wealth in the last few years. A large amount of his wealth comes from the holdings of MicroStrategy.

An Attorney General for the District of Columbia sued Saylor accusing him of committing tax fraud. Even his company MicroStrategy was also accused of collaborating with him for tax evasion by misreporting his address details. However, Saylor disagreed with their accusations expecting a fair resolution in the court.