AQR’s Cliff Asness Sides With Jim Chanos in Critique of Michael Saylor’s Strategy

AQR Capital Management’s Cliff Asness says he’s in agreement with famed short seller Jim Chanos when it comes to his criticism of Strategy founder Michael Saylor’s claim that the use of convertible debt affords the leveraged Bitcoin proxy downside protection while continuing to accumulate the cryptocurrency.

The critique is centered around whether there is “recourse” for the company formally known as MicroStrategy Inc. to pay back holders of its convertible bonds, through which Strategy raised roughly $10 billion to fund Bitcoin purchases. While Saylor said this type of debt “is not going to get called” and can be paid off with stock if the price of Bitcoin tumbles, both Asness and Chanos disagreed. In a Friday post on social media platform X, Asness said Chanos “is of course right.”