One of the most unpopular CEOs in 2024 has joined one of the most popular F1 teams.
Late last week, Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team announced that George Kurtz, CEO and founder of Austin-based CrowdStrike, has become a team co-owner and technology advisor.
Kurtz, a longtime entrepreneur and founder of CrowdStrike, is also an FIA Bronze-rated race car driver who won the Pro-Am class at the 2024 24 Hours of Le Mans. Per Forbes, Kurtz has a net worth of $6.3 billion.
Kurtz acquired a 15 percent minority stake in the $6 billion team. Team principal and CEO Toto Wolff owns one-third of the team in partnership with Mercedes-Benz and Ineos. The estimated cost of the deal is $300 million.
“George’s background is unusual in its breadth-he’s a racer, a loyal sporting ambassador for Mercedes-AMG, and an exceptional entrepreneur,” Wolff said in a statement ahead of Saturday night’s Las Vegas Grand Prix. “He understands both the demands of racing and the realities of building and scaling technology businesses. That combination brings specific insight that is increasingly relevant to the future of Formula 1.”
Kurtz also joins the team’s strategic steering committee, focusing on technological advancements, alongside Mercedes-Benz Group’s chairman of the board, Ola Källenius; Ineos Group founder and chairman Sir Jim Ratcliffe (who also manages sporting operations at Manchester United); and Wolff. The team’s governance remains unchanged, and Wolff continues in all his current executive roles.
Kurtz’s tech advisory role with Mercedes is compelling, given that CrowdStrike made major headlines in 2024 after a system update caused international IT outages due to a bug affecting Microsoft’s operating system. The net result was numerous reports of technical issues, with thousands of Microsoft users seeing an error screen commonly referred to as the “blue screen of death.”
The CrowdStrike CEO believes the F1 market still has plenty of room to grow, especially among younger generations.
“Particularly in the U.S. and particularly within the technology space where we can bring more sponsors in,” said Kurtz via Reuters’ Alan Baldwin.
Kurtz believes F1 will continue to rise in line with league and team valuations in the NFL and NBA. However, the businessman stated that he might not be done acquiring sports properties.
“We’re always looking at opportunities, we think sports is a great area,” said Kurtz. “We like the NBA, we like hockey, we like many of the areas that we’ve touched on. It has to be the right opportunity and more importantly it’s got to be with the right fit and team. But we are certainly open to other opportunities as they come up.”
The cities of Houston and Austin have been prominently mentioned for NHL and WNBA expansion. Back in December 2023, Mark Cuban stunned the basketball community by selling the majority stake in the Dallas Mavericks to the Adelson family for $3.5 billion, while retaining a 27% ownership stake.
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