Federal Contractors/Technology: MICHAEL SAYLOR

After bitcoin’s value nosedived below $17,600 in June, Saylor tweeted an edited photo of himself sporting a McDonald’s hat, serving fries and a hamburger. “Monday morning is time to get back to work. #Bitcoin,” he tweeted to his 2.6 million Twitter followers.

MicroStrategy reported a $1.98 billion impairment loss on its bitcoin holdings in an August earnings report. Following that news, Saylor stepped down as CEO of the publicly traded tech company he founded in 1989. MicroStrategy President Phong Le was appointed CEO.

MicroStrategy is the largest corporate bitcoin holder, having purchased nearly 129,700 bitcoins since August 2020 at a cost of $3.97 billion. The company’s bitcoin holdings were worth as much as $7 billion in November 2021 when the cryptocurrency was trading at more than $68,000 per coin. As of June 30, MicroStrategy’s holdings were valued at $2.45 billion. In recent months, MicroStrategy re-collateralized a loan to avoid a margin call.

Saylor, a superyacht-owning, billionaire MIT graduate, lost $6.1 billion in a single day in 2000 amid the dotcom bubble burst. He reinvented himself for the 2020s as an optimistic cryptocurrency evangelist.

“Take the long view. #Bitcoin,” Saylor tweeted in July.