Story Update: According to Wikipedia, an "accounting scandal" hit Saylor's company, MicroStrategy, at about the same time this story ran, which caused its stock to drop 95% over the course of a few weeks.

"Adjusted for stock splits, the company traded for an all-time high of $333 on March 10, 2000, and an all-time low of $4.20 on July 3, 2002 during the stock market downturn of 2002. At that time Michael Saylor was labeled as a person who had lost more money in a single day than anyone other than Bill Gates when his personal net worth plummeted $6 billion on March 20, 2000.

"For his part in the MicroStrategy accounting scandal of 2000, Mr. Saylor was fined $350,000 by the SEC. This was the largest such fine levied to an individual by the SEC up to that time. Mr. Saylor also agreed in court to repay $8.3M to MicroStrategy shareholders."

But what of the online university? "While no formal statement was ever issued regarding cancellation of the project, the donation didn't materialize following the MicroStrategy stock fall."

Easy come, easy go.