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MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor speaks at the Bitcoin 2021 Convention, a crypto-currency conference held at the Mana Convention Center in Wynwood on June 04, 2021 in Miami, Florida.

Joe Raedle | Getty Images

MicroStrategy was founded almost 35 years ago and existed for most of its history as a little-known software company focused on business intelligence.

But in 2023, the stock has soared 337%, making it one of the biggest gainers in the U.S. among companies valued at $5 billion or more, topping Nvidia’s 234% rally and Meta’s 194% surge.

Unlike its tech peers, which rely on revenue growth and market share gains to fuel their stock prices, MicroStrategy’s investor appeal is almost exclusively due to bitcoin. The company began buying the cryptocurrency in mid-2020 and has since amassed roughly 174,530 bitcoins, worth about $7.65 billion as of late Friday.

Wall Street is so enamored by the story that the stock has about doubled bitcoin’s gain this year.

“It’s really bitcoin,” said Joseph Vafi, an analyst at Canaccord Genuity who has a buy recommendation on the stock. “All the other stuff is healthy and doing a good job, they’re not neglecting it. It’s doing well, it’s leading software in its sector. But it’s basically something we don’t have to worry about.”

MicroStrategy’s market cap is $8.5 billion, meaning 90% of its valued is tied directly to its bitcoin holdings. When bitcoin plummets or soars, so does MicroStrategy. In 2022, bitcoin’s 64% drop pushed MicroStrategy down 74%. Even after its huge pop this year, MicroStrategy shares are still below where they were trading at their high in 2021, during peak crypto.

The bitcoin strategy dates back to July 2020, when the company said it would start putting some of its cash towards alternative assets, including digital currencies. At the time, MicroStrategy had a market cap of roughly $1.1 billion, built on a software business that had been shrinking since 2015. Annual revenue was just under $500 million, and profit was minimal.

At the halfway point of 2020, MicroStrategy had just over $530 million in cash and short-term investments on its balance sheet. Co-founder Michael Saylor, who was CEO at the time, saw that money sitting virtually idle on the sidelines due to low interest rates and wanted to put it to work.

From there, he had to decide whether equities, precious metals or bitcoin would be the best use of funds.

“The reason we decided to buy bitcoin is because bitcoin represents a form of digital gold,” Saylor said on the first earnings call after the company announced its strategy. “It’s harder than gold. It’s smarter, it’s stronger, it’s faster than gold.”

Saylor’s decision created a way for investors to have stake in bitcoin through routine purchases of stock, rather than having to buy the coins directly. Saylor, who stepped down as CEO last year and assumed the role of executive chairman, told CNBC’s Morgan Brennan last week that he expects the bull market in bitcoin to continue next year. He said 99.9% of the capital in the world is invested in real estate, stocks, bonds and commodities, with only 0.1% allocated toward bitcoin.

“People, as they get educated on digital assets, are realizing that they ought to be allocating more and more of their capital to this digital asset and so they’re moving from .1 to .2%,” said Saylor, who co-authored a book about bitcoin last year titled “What is Money?”

Bitcoin will continue to move forward in 2024, says MicroStrategy's Michael Saylor

Novel use of cash

MicroStrategy isn’t the first company to put some of its cash pile into alternative investments, and it’s not the last to look for ways to generate outsized returns on that money. Earlier this month, GameStop gave CEO Ryan Cohen, who gained minor celebrity status as an investor, permission to use company cash to purchase stock.

But MicroStrategy is unique in that it’s become viewed almost exclusively as a bitcoin holding company.

“Michael Saylor’s kind of a visionary,” said Vafi. “He saw this as an opportunity to really exploit the fact that they had a lot of cash and a pristine balance sheet and start this bitcoin treasury experiment. And it’s worked out well and so they’re continuing down that path.”

In analyzing why MicroStrategy’s stock has so dramatically outperformed bitcoin this year, Vafi described it as a “scarcity premium,” because there are limited ways for equity investors to tap the market.

That’s potentially changing in the new year, as investors gear up for a flurry of bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Currently, there are bitcoin futures ETFs, which are comprised of contracts to buy and sell bitcoin but not of the cryptocurrency itself. And investors can buy into the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, a fund that owns bitcoin and trades over the counter rather than on a major exchange.

Grayscale sued the SEC last year after the regulator denied its application to create a spot bitcoin ETF on concerns about investor protections. In August of this year, an appeals court ruled in favor of Grayscale, a decision than many in the industry viewed as paving the way for a new crop of ETFs. Asset managers, including BlackRock, Fidelity and Invesco, have filed with the SEC for their own products. 

Vafi said the prospect of competition poses little threat to MicroStrategy.

“I call it right now a very high-class problem to a certain degree,” he said. “If a bitcoin ETF gets approved, the price of bitcoin is probably headed higher and potentially materially higher.”

MicroStrategy also presents more than just a bet on the direction of bitcoin. While ETFs are passively managed, MicroStrategy has the option to put its bitcoin holdings to work, using them, for example, as collateral to create more business opportunities.

“MicroStrategy is encouraged by the continuing maturity of the regulatory environment around bitcoin as well as the increased institutional demand that we are seeing today,” Shirish Jajodia, the company’s vice president of treasury and investor relations, told CNBC in an email. “We do believe it will have a positive impact on the adoption of bitcoin by mainstream investors as well as corporations.”

MicroStrategy’s software business is a big plus too, Saylor said on the company’s most recent earnings call. It’s a proven cash flow generator, enabling the company to buy more bitcoin, he said.

For the many investors betting against MicroStrategy, it’s been a tough year.

As of early December, crypto stock short sellers were down $6.1 billion for the year, with the rally in Coinbase hurting them the most, according to S3 Partners. In the first three quarters of the year, short sellers spent $2.19 billion covering their bets, the firm said, with the majority of the buying in Coinbase and MicroStrategy.

Short sellers this year have lost $4 billion on Coinbase and $1.4 billion on MicroStrategy, according to data provided by S3 last week. Some 23% of MicroStrategy’s shares available to the public are shorted, S3 said, which is second highest among crypto companies, behind only bitcoin miner Marathon Digital. The average for U.S. stocks is 5%.

MicroStrategy shows no signs of slowing down when it comes to snapping pu bitcoin. The company said it purchased roughly 16,130 bitcoins in November for over $593 million, even with the price continuing to rise. That’s more bitcoin than it’s bought in any full quarter since the first three months of 2021.

— CNBC’s Kate Dore contributed to this report

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Apple says COO Jeff Williams will retire from company later this year

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Apple says COO Jeff Williams will retire from company later this year

Jeff Williams, chief operating officer of Apple Inc., during the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) at Apple Park campus in Cupertino, California, US, on Monday, June 9, 2025.

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Apple said on Tuesday that Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams, a 27-year company veteran, will be retiring later this year.

Current operations leader Sabih Khan will take over much of the COO role later this month, Apple said in a press release. For his remaining time with the comapny, Williams will continue to head up Apple’s design team, Apple Watch, and health initiatives, reporting to CEO Tim Cook.

Williams becomes the latest longtime Apple executive to step down as key employees, who were active in the company’s hyper-growth years, reach retirement age. Williams, 62, previously headed Apple’s formidable operations division, which is in charge of manufacturing millions of complicated devices like iPhones, while keeping costs down.

He also led important teams inside Apple, including the company’s fabled industrial design team, after longtime leader Jony Ive retired in 2019. When Williams retires, Apple’s design team will report to CEO Tim Cook, Apple said.

“He’s helped to create one of the most respected global supply chains in the world; launched Apple Watch and overseen its development; architected Apple’s health strategy; and led our world class team of designers with great wisdom, heart, and dedication,” Cook said in the statement.

Williams said he plans to spend more time with friends and family.

“June marked my 27th anniversary with Apple, and my 40th in the industry,” Williams said in the release.

Williams is leaving Apple at a time when its famous supply chain is under significant pressure, as the U.S. imposes tariffs on many of the countries where Apple sources its devices, and White House officials publicly pressure Apple to move more production to the U.S.

Khan was added to Apple’s executive team in 2019, taking an executive vice president title. Apple said on Tuesday that he will lead supply chain, product quality, planning, procurement, and fulfillment at Apple.

The operations leader joined Apple’s procurement group in 1995, and before that worked as an engineer and technical leader at GE Plastics. He has a bachelor’s degree from Tufts University and a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in upstate New York.

Khan has worked closely with Cook. Once, during a meeting when Cook said that a manufacturing problem was “really bad,” Khan stood up and drove to the airport, and immediately booked a flight to China to fix it, according to an anecdote published in Fortune.

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Elon Musk lashes out at Tesla bull Dan Ives over board proposals: ‘Shut up’

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Elon Musk lashes out at Tesla bull Dan Ives over board proposals: 'Shut up'

Elon Musk, chief executive officer of SpaceX and Tesla, attends the Viva Technology conference at the Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris, June 16, 2023.

Gonzalo Fuentes | Reuters

Tesla CEO Elon Musk told Wedbush Securities’ Dan Ives to “Shut up” on Tuesday after the analyst offered three recommendations to the electric vehicle company’s board in a post on X.

Ives has been one of the most bullish Tesla observers on Wall Street. With a $500 price target on the stock, he has the highest projection of any analyst tracked by FactSet.

But on Tuesday, Ives took to X with critical remarks about Musk’s political activity after the world’s richest person said over the weekend that he was creating a new political party called the America Party to challenge Republican candidates who voted for the spending bill that was backed by President Donald Trump.

Ives’ post followed a nearly 7% slide in Tesla’s stock Monday, which wiped out $68 billion in market cap. Ives called for Tesla’s board to create a new pay package for Musk that would get him 25% voting control and clear a path to merge with xAI, establish “guardrails” for how much time Musk has to spend at Tesla, and provide “oversight on political endeavors.”

Ives published a lengthier note with other analysts from his firm headlined, “The Tesla board MUST Act and Create Ground Rules For Musk; Soap Opera Must End.” The analysts said that Musk’s launching of a new political party created a “tipping point in the Tesla story,” necessitating action by the company’s board to rein in the CEO.

Still, Wedbush maintained its price target and its buy recommendation on the stock.

“Shut up, Dan,” Musk wrote in response on X, even though the first suggestion would hand the CEO the voting control he has long sought at Tesla.

In an email to CNBC, Ives wrote, “Elon has his opinion and I get it, but we stand by what the right course of action is for the Board.”

Musk’s historic 2018 CEO pay package, which had been worth around $56 billion and has since gone up in value, was voided last year by the Delaware Court of Chancery. Judge Kathaleen McCormick ruled that Tesla’s board members had lacked independence from Musk and failed to properly negotiate at arm’s length with the CEO.

Elon Musk can't continue to go down this political path, says Wedbush's Dan Ives

Tesla has appealed that case to the Delaware state Supreme Court and is trying to determine what Musk’s next pay package should entail.

Ives isn’t the only Tesla bull to criticize Musk’s continued political activism.

Analysts at William Blair downgraded the stock to the equivalent of a hold from a buy on Monday, because of Musk’s political plans and rhetoric as well as the negative impacts that the spending bill passed by Congress could have on Tesla’s margins and EV sales.

“We expect that investors are growing tired of the distraction at a point when the business needs Musk’s attention the most and only see downside from his dip back into politics,” the analysts wrote. “We would prefer this effort to be channeled towards the robotaxi rollout at this critical juncture.”

Trump supporter James Fishback, CEO of hedge fund Azoria Partners, said Saturday that his firm postponed the listing of an exchange-traded fund, the Azoria Tesla Convexity ETF, that would invest in the EV company’s shares and options. He began his post on X saying, “Elon has gone too far.”

“I encourage the Board to meet immediately and ask Elon to clarify his political ambitions and evaluate whether they are compatible with his full-time obligations to Tesla as CEO,” Fishback wrote.

Musk said Saturday that he has formed the America Party, which he claimed will give Americans “back your freedom.” He hasn’t shared formal details, including where the party may be registered, how much funding he will provide for it and which candidates he will back.

Tesla’s stock is now down about 25% this year, badly underperforming U.S. indexes and by far the worst performance among tech’s megacaps.

Musk spent much of the first half of the year working with the Trump administration and leading an effort to massively downsize the federal government. His official work with the administration wrapped up at the end of May, and his exit preceded a public spat between Musk and Trump over the spending bill and other matters.

Musk, Tesla’s board chair Robyn Denholm and investor relations representative Travis Axelrod didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

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Waymo offers teen accounts for driverless rides

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Waymo offers teen accounts for driverless rides

Waymo announced it is now offering teen accounts for its self-driving car service Waymo One, beginning in Phoenix, Arizona.

Courtesy of Waymo

Waymo announced Tuesday that it is offering accounts for teens ages 14 to 17, starting in Phoenix.

The Alphabet-owned company said that, beginning Tuesday, parents in Phoenix can use their Waymo accounts “to invite their teen into the program, pairing them together.” Once their account is activated, teens can hail fully autonomous rides.

Previously, users were required to be at least 18 years old to sign up for a Waymo account, but the age range expansion comes as the company seeks to increase ridership amid a broader expansion of its ride-hailing service across U.S. cities. Alphabet has also been under pressure to monetize AI products amid increased competition and economic headwinds.

Waymo said it will offer “specially-trained Rider Support agents” during rides hailed by teens and loop in parents if needed. Teens can also share their trip status with their parents for real-time updates on their progress, and parents receive all ride receipts.

Teen accounts are initially only being offered to riders in the metro Phoenix area. Teen accounts will expand to more markets outside California where the Waymo app is available in the future, a spokesperson said.

Waymo’s expansion to teens follows a similar move by Uber, which launched teen accounts in 2023. Waymo, which has partnerships with Uber in multiple markets, said it “may consider enabling access for teens through our network partners in the future.”

Already, Waymo provides more than 250,000 paid trips each week across Phoenix, the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Austin, Texas, and the company is preparing to bring autonomous rides to Miami and Washington, D.C., in 2026.

In June, Waymo announced that it plans to manually drive vehicles in New York, marking the first step toward potentially cracking the largest U.S. city. Waymo said it applied for a permit with the New York City Department of Transportation to operate autonomously with a trained specialist behind the wheel in Manhattan.

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