Bitcoin billionaire Michael Saylor settles DC tax fraud case for $40 million

• Billionaire bitcoin investor Michael Saylor and the company he founded, MicroStrategy, have agreed to pay $40 million to settle a tax fraud lawsuit brought by the Washington D.C. Attorney General's Office.
• AG Brian Schwalb's suit alleges that Saylor lived in Washington for years, but filed tax returns claiming he lived in other states in order to avoid paying higher income tax rates in D.C.
• Saylor has amassed billions of dollars since he started investing in bitcoin in 2020, and has become an outspoken crusader for the cryptocurrency.

Billionaire bitcoin investor Michael Saylor and the company he founded, MicroStrategy, will pay $40 million to settle a tax fraud lawsuit brought by the Washington D.C. Attorney General, the AG's office announced Monday.

Between 2005 and 2021, Saylor allegedly evaded over $25 million in District of Columbia income taxes by posing as a resident of lower-tax states like Florida and Virginia, Attorney General Brian Schwalb claimed in a 2023 civil complaint.

Saylor's actual home, the suit alleges, was a luxury penthouse apartment in Washington overlooking the Georgetown waterfront, where he kept his yachts on the Potomac River.

Saylor founded Virginia-based MicroStrategy in 1989 as a software consultancy and a pioneering data analytics firm, taking the company public in 1998 on the Nasdaq. He served as MicroStrategy's CEO until 2022, when he stepped into the role of executive chairman.

In 2020, Saylor shifted the company into the crypto market, and since then he has amassed billions of dollars worth of crypto.

Saylor's net worth as of June 2 was approximately $4.6 billion, according to Forbes. He also held 2.4 million shares of MicroStrategy, or a 13% stake in the company, as of February.

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