Digital economy, as the core driving force of China’s high-quality economic growth, has become increasingly important for micro enterprises’ investment decisions. Based on the data of A-share listed companies in China’s Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets from 2011 to 2019, we empirically examine the impact and mechanism of digital economy development on corporate risk-taking. We find that the development of digital economy significantly improves the level of corporate risk-taking. By analyzing its mechanism of action, we find that managerial discretion plays a positive moderating role in the relationship between digital economy and corporate risk-taking. Among it, organizational autonomy and special situational autonomy play a positive moderating role. However, the moderated effect of environmental autonomy is not significant. Further heterogeneity analysis finds that the role of digital economy in increasing the level of corporate risk-taking is stronger in emerging advantageous industries. This paper theoretically enriches related research in the field of digital economy and corporate risk-taking and provides useful suggestions for promoting the deep integration of digital economy and real economy in practice.