Michael Saylor: ‘Nothing great has ever been created by a short seller’

Strategy (MSTR) executive chairman Michael Saylor pushed back against short sellers betting against its stock and others following its pioneering digital asset treasury (DAT) strategy.

"Nothing great has ever been created by a short seller," Saylor said at Yahoo Finance Invest on Thursday.

"I don't really think about Jim Chanos," he said, referencing the famed short seller who has been among the most prominent critics of the DAT boom. "I think that there'll be some skeptics. They don't really appreciate what bitcoin is doing. They don't understand digital capital. They don't understand digital credit."

Since May, veteran short seller Jim Chanos had been placing bets against Strategy stock, though he said in a post on X on Nov. 8 that he had unwound his position against Saylor's company.

Strategy stock is down 22% year to date, with most of that drawdown occurring in the past six months, while bitcoin is up 10% during that time frame. Short interest in Strategy currently hovers around 8.8%, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.