Billionaire Bitcoin investor Michael Saylor, who founded the company he co-founded, said: MicroStrategyThe shift towards high-risk proxies for cryptocurrencies has been encouraging. microsoft You use some of your massive cash pile to follow his lead.
But on Tuesday, after he presented the proposal at Microsoft’s annual shareholder meeting, shareholders rejected it.
In October microsoft The National Center for Public Policy Research, a conservative think tank, told investors it plans to submit a shareholder proposal recommending that the software company’s board consider diversifying its balance sheet with Bitcoin.
Saylor, now MicroStrategy’s chairman, has bought billions of dollars worth of stock, sending the company’s stock price up nearly 500% this year. Bitcoin.
“Microsoft cannot afford to miss the next wave of technology, and Bitcoin is that wave,” Saylor said in a video presentation released by X last week. The post has been viewed more than 3 million times.
In his three-minute presentation, Saylor showed a chart showing that Bitcoin generated annualized returns of 62% between August 2020 and November 2024, compared to 18% for Microsoft and 14% for the S&P 500. Bonds as an asset class lost 5%. , shown in the presentation.
“You can convert your cash flow, your dividends, your redemptions, your debt into Bitcoin,” Saylor said. “That would add hundreds of dollars to the stock price.”
Tuesday’s virtual appearance was not the first time Saylor has made a pitch to Microsoft, which had $78.4 billion worth of cash, equivalents and near-term investments as of the end of September.
Microsoft said in a proxy filing last October that its treasury and investment services team had previously evaluated Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to fund the company’s operations and reduce economic risk, and that it would “use cryptocurrencies to inform future decisions.” “We continue to monitor trends and developments related to this,” he said.
A day later, Saylor spoke directly about X to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.
“@SatyaNadella, if you want to make the next trillion for $MSFT shareholders, call me,” Saylor wrote.
The proposal failed to win support from a majority of voting shareholders after Microsoft recommended its rejection. Proxy advisors Glass Lewis and Institutional Shareholder Services both voted against the measure.
Microsoft’s finance chief, Amy Hood, said in response to shareholder questions at Tuesday’s meeting that the company began accepting cryptocurrency for customer payments in 2014. “We continue to think about the evolution of cryptocurrencies,” she said.
Microsoft shares are up about 19% so far this year, significantly underperforming MicroStrategy.
But Saylor directly linked his company, currently valued at about $83 billion, to the wealth of Bitcoin. In mid-2020, the former mid-tier software company announced its plans to invest in Bitcoin, saying in its earnings call that it would invest $250 million in “one or more alternative assets” over the next 12 months. This may include digital currencies such as Bitcoin. At the time, MicroStrategy’s market capitalization was approximately $1.1 billion.
As of December 8, MicroStrategy and its subsidiaries held a total of 423,650 bitcoins, with a total value of approximately $26.5 billion. If Bitcoin trades at $95,000, its holdings are worth over $41.3 billion.
MicroStrategy has been selling stock and increasing debt to fund its Bitcoin purchases. The company said on November 21 that it had completed the sale of $3 billion of convertible notes “to acquire additional Bitcoin and for general corporate purposes.”
According to Forbes, Saylor’s net worth has soared to $9.1 billion, largely due to his ownership of MicroStrategy.
see: Michael Saylor on MicroStrategy and Bitcoin
