Michael Saylor to step down as MicroStrategy CEO as the software maker records $917 million charge on bitcoin investment

• Michael Saylor, MicroStrategy's founder, will give up the role of CEO on Monday.
• The software firm posted an impairment charge of $917 million related to its investment in bitcoin.

MicroStrategy's founder, Michael Saylor, will step down as CEO after the enterprise software maker took a quarterly impairment charge of more than $900 million related to the drop in the price of bitcoin.

Saylor will take on the newly created role of executive chairman, the company said in a statement late Tuesday that accompanied its second-quarter results.

"As executive chairman I will be able to focus more on our bitcoin acquisition strategy and related bitcoin advocacy initiatives," Saylor said in the statement, adding that the roles of chairman and CEO would be split.

Saylor, who founded MicroStrategy in 1989, said MicroStrategy's president, Phong Le, was appointed as CEO and "will be empowered" to "manage overall corporate operations."

The changes are set to go into effect on Monday.

The company said its second-quarter results in part reflected a digital-asset impairment charge of $917.8 million. The charge stemmed from MicroStrategy's investment in bitcoin, the price of which has plunged this year from its all-time high above $68,000 in November; bitcoin traded at about $23,385 on Wednesday.

The cryptocurrency market has been caught up in a so-called crypto winter that's pulled its value to about $1.1 trillion from $3 trillion in roughly nine months.

Saylor has repeatedly said MicroStrategy would continue to buy bitcoin, and he's said he considers the crypto asset the best store of value.

MicroStrategy posted a second-quarter net loss of $1.06 billion, or $94.01 a share, widening from $299.3 million, or $30.71 a share, a year ago. Its second-quarter loss from operations was $918.1 million, compared with $414.2 million in the year-ago period.