Microstrategy CEO, Michael Saylor Defends $2.2 Billion Debt-Financed Bitcoin Buys

MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor on Friday defended his enterprise software company’s debt-financed purchases of bitcoin, telling CNBC he sees buying the cryptocurrency right now as comparable to investing in Facebook in the social network’s early days.He said:“We’ve got $2.2 billion of debt and we pay about 1.5% interest, and we have a very long time horizon,” Saylor said on “Squawk on the Street.” “Our point of view is being a leveraged, bitcoin-long company is a good thing for our shareholders.If you borrow billions of dollars at 1% interest and invest it in the next Big Tech digital network that you thought was going to be the dominant Amazon or Google or Facebook of money, why wouldn’t you?” Saylor said. “I mean, if I could borrow $1 billion and buy Facebook a decade ago for 1% interest, I think I would’ve done quite well.Everybody is looking for this open way to store value and move value at the speed of light using a computer chip and a mobile phone,” Saylor said. “You had Google. They created digital books. You had Facebook; they created digital communications. Apple gave us digital music, and Amazon gave us digital retail. Bitcoin is digital property on a big tech, open monetary network.Our view is it’s only a matter of time before billions and billions of people have mobile phones pugged into bitcoin, and we just want to be there first.”