Spook Smoke at MSTR?

Cato was suspended from X for posting the following:

Did you know that MSTR’s software business has a “shadow” board employing CIA and Homeland Security Veterans?

And that its affiliate company Microstrategy Government Services (created after starting the BTC strategy) provides no info on its intelligence clients and revenues?

Let’s dig in.

Strategy does classified work and must submit to rules set by an agency under the Department of Defense - the Defense Counterintelligence & Security Agency.

Strategy’s affiliate Microstrategy Government Services (MGS) is governed by a Security Agreement whereby Strategy surrenders governance and operational control of MGS to an outside board. Revenues of MGS flow up to the parent company, but MSTR’s financial statements provide no breakdown of government clients and their revenues, and classified contracts are handled by the proxy board.

So who really runs MGS? The answer is Defense veterans.

Rick "Ozzie" Nelson is an EVP at Strategy. He is a CSIS senior associate of Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, and has testified before the House Committee on Homeland Security.

In 2022 he announced the engagement of two board members for MGS, (which had been incorporated in 2021 shortly after Strategy’s adoption of the BTC strategy), Karen Schaefer and Tom Atkin:

Karen Schaefer is a CIA veteran of 26 years, who was chief of operations, deputy chief of counterintelligence, and managed covert action programs at the National Security Council (NSC).

Is all that expertise needed for MSTR to sell only an estimated $50M in annual software revenues to the US Government? Why isn’t the overqualified Karen Schaefer employed at a top military contractor such as Raytheon or Lockheed instead?

MSTR also engaged Tom Atkin for the same board. Tom has over 36 years of government experience and was Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and Global Security.

Contrary to how Strategy’s “legacy” business has been presented to retail investors, Strategy has deep ties to US intelligence, to which they sell software via a company controlled by intelligence veterans.

Strategy’s government products can be seen as a back-looking Palantir, tools built to summarize, report, and analyze what already happened, instead of predicting the future.

Was MSTR, a company authorized to access classified defense info, chosen to become a vehicle for holding BTC for the US in a plausible deniable manner?

Check out their convenient HQ location along with the other supporting materials attached below: