Scottish Mortgage is Baillie Gifford's flagship investment trust (founded 1909, LSE ticker SMT), known for its maximalist growth style — long-term stakes in Tesla, Amazon and ASML plus bold allocations to private companies like SpaceX and ByteDance. It is the UK retail investor's flagship vehicle for global disruptive growth.
This article explains how Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust, a big tech investor, recently moved its money. They still back SpaceX hard after its IPO, arguing rockets are just the start — future profits may come from space-based data centers and solar power. They sold all their Tesla shares after 13 years, saying the stock already priced in too much future promise from robots and self-driving cars. They also bought stakes in a chipmaker and two energy companies, because AI uses huge amounts of electricity, making power a bottleneck. For ordinary investors, the lesson is to pay for what exists today, not just for exciting dreams. Worth reading to see how professionals handle uncertainty.
The report is Scottish Mortgage's quarterly investment update, with core focus on SpaceX's prospects following its IPO. SpaceX completed the largest IPO in history, reducing orbital launch costs by approximately 85% through reusable rockets, which gave rise to Starlink—now serving roughly 11 million
Chloé Darling-Stewart is an Investment Specialist at Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust. The main themes in this issue: after SpaceX completed the largest IPO in history, she believes "its biggest opportunity is still ahead"; she exited Tesla entirely after holding it for 13 years; and AI's impact has spread from chips and software to electricity and physical infrastructure, bringing three new investments.
The most consequential judgment in the entire video: "An IPO changes the trading venue, not the investment logic" — Chloé Darling-Stewart argues that SpaceX should no longer be simply understood as a rocket company; "the rocket is merely the entry ticket," and the real opportunity lies in the follow-on vision of orbital data centers, space-based solar power, and even Mars cities.
Chloé Darling-Stewart argues that SpaceX's growth follows a fixed pattern—identify a bottleneck, solve it, then use that capability to unlock the next opportunity—and the opportunities after an IPO may be even larger than those of the past.
The argument proceeds along a clear historical chain. The first bottleneck is launch: historically, rockets were essentially single-use consumables. She offers an analogy—"equivalent to throwing away an airplane after flying across the Atlantic." Through booster recovery and reuse, SpaceX has cut the cost of reaching orbit by roughly 85%, making launches more frequent and repeatable. This change in economics directly gave rise to Starlink: using its own rockets to build a satellite broadband network at a scale and cost that are extremely difficult to replicate. Starlink now serves roughly 11 million customers, and its recurring revenue has become the cash flywheel funding Starship; Starship, in turn, targets broader infrastructure opportunities. She calls this process "capability creation in action"—a live demonstration of capability creation, with each breakthrough providing the tools for the next business.
The data points support the conclusion of "remarkable capital efficiency": before the IPO, SpaceX raised only about $9 billion in equity, yet it is now valued at nearly $1.8 trillion. Scottish Mortgage's initial investment of roughly $200 million in 2018 is now worth about $5 billion—25 times the capital invested.
The extrapolation works backward from the end goal: a self-sustaining city on Mars. She makes clear that Mars is not a distant ambition but a "forcing function" that attracts top engineers and compels solutions to commercially valuable problems along the way. The Moon is a nearer proving ground, while the commercial path begins in low Earth orbit—AI's power constraints are giving rise to orbital data centers, and space-based solar can bypass land and grid limitations. The key linchpin is Starship lowering the cost of reaching orbit to roughly $100 per kilogram: "If achieved, it would not only expand the launch market but could open up an entirely new space economy."
She also acknowledges the risks: "There is no established script; tests will fail, timelines will slip, and not every opportunity will develop as hoped." On positioning, SpaceX accounted for just over 25% of the portfolio at end-June—an unusually high concentration for Scottish Mortgage. The lock-up means the position has not materially changed since the IPO; once it expires, the weight is expected to fall but remain significant.
It should be noted that this narrative carries an unmistakable tone of a position holder—"SpaceX was built for exactly this process: act quickly, test in the real world, learn and iterate"; "we remain extremely excited about what comes next." Readers should treat it as the manager's defensive statement about their own holding.
Chloé Darling-Stewart 认为，投资逻辑永远是面向未来的，「重要的是从现在起还能获得多少回报」；Tesla 下一阶段依赖的自动驾驶与机器人尚在萌芽，核心汽车业务竞争加剧（尤其来自中国），当前价格让投资者为潜力付了过高的代价。
回顾建仓逻辑：2013 年投资时，Tesla 挑战的是全球最庞大、最根深蒂固的行业之一，主流观点是电动车永远小众、Tesla 永远造不出足够多的车。她引用了当时写下的判断：「如果汽车世界走向电动化，Tesla 将成为这场革命的标志。」但实现过程远非顺利——在 Elon Musk 所称的「生产地狱」期间，执行失误、资金紧张、生存被公开质疑；Baillie Gifford 一度是 Tesla 最大外部股东。
退出数据：Scottish Mortgage 投入约 4.7 亿美元，13 年间为股东实现约 62 亿美元已实现利润——约为投入资本的 13 倍。她将这种体验概括为「令人不适的复利」（uncomfortable compounding）：潜在回报可以异常出色，但通往那里的路很少平坦。
决策逻辑是一句关键判断：「耐心不等于永远持有。」资本竞争激烈，每个仓位必须依据「从现在起能带来的回报」证明自己存在的必要；13 年后，这笔资本在别处可以工作得更努力。验证信号也由此明确：Tesla 的自动驾驶与机器人业务能否从「萌芽」长成可观业务，以及中国市场竞争格局的演变，将事后检验这次卖出的对错。
Chloé Darling-Stewart argues that the AI narrative has so far focused on chips, models, and data centers, but this buildout is extremely power-hungry; AI, electrification, and manufacturing reshoring are simultaneously pushing demand higher—"supply cannot keep up"—and electricity is becoming the key constraint.
The shift in investment logic is worth noting: energy has not been a major research focus for Scottish Mortgage in recent years, but she points out that the logic is familiar—"when technological progress creates demand for scarce inputs, we look beyond the most obvious winners to find those who supply them." This gives rise to three new investments: SK Hynix (high-bandwidth memory, HBM, has become a key bottleneck in AI infrastructure), Vistra (the largest competitive power producer in the U.S., with nuclear, natural gas, solar, wind, and battery assets, capable of delivering reliable power as demand rises), and EQT (controls one of North America's largest low-cost natural gas resources, growing increasingly important as electricity demand and LNG exports expand).
Other moves in the same period: during the quarter, it participated in Anthropic's latest funding round, adding to this leading AI company; at the end of June, the portfolio still had 20% allocated to unlisted companies, including Revolut (rebuilding financial services around customers), Zipline (autonomous drones delivering essential goods), and Enveda (using billions of years of evolution as a drug discovery engine). She notes these companies span different industries and stages; what they share is "the potential to reshape their respective markets."
Signals for validation and uncertainties: how long the electricity constraint persists and whether approval and construction timelines can be shortened are key to judging these positions; she herself acknowledges that new power plants, grid connections, and pipelines "take years to build and approve." It is also worth noting that the original text's closing paragraph—about the closed-ended structure "letting Scottish Mortgage be truly long-term and patient amid uncertainty"—has a self-promotional tone. The closed-ended structure does offer liquidity and duration advantages, but the 25% concentration in a single holding equally amplifies risk, a point the original text gives little attention.
| Position | Guest Stance | Key Data |
|---|---|---|
| SpaceX | Bullish (held; weight expected to decline after lock-up expiry) | Invested ~$200 million in 2018 → current value ~$5 billion (25x); slightly over 25% of portfolio at end of June; raised only ~$9 billion before IPO, valuation near $1.8 trillion; Starlink has ~11 million customers; cost to orbit down ~85%; Starship target ~$100 per kilogram |
| Tesla | Liquidated (sold after holding for 13 years) | Invested ~$470 million → realized profit ~$6.2 billion (~13x); position opened in 2013, sold in April 2026 |
| Anthropic | Added (participated in latest funding round) | Amount not disclosed |
| SK Hynix | New position (positive on HBM bottleneck position) | Amount not disclosed |
| Vistra | New position (positive on power supply) | Largest competitive power producer in the U.S.; nuclear/gas/solar/wind/battery assets |
| EQT | New position (positive on natural gas demand) | One of the largest low-cost natural gas resource bases in North America |
| Revolut | Held (no action disclosed) | No data disclosed |
| Zipline | Held (no action disclosed) | No data disclosed |
| Enveda | Held (no action disclosed) | No data disclosed |
1. "The IPO changes the venue, not the thesis." That is: the IPO changes the trading venue, not the investment logic. — Chloé Darling-Stewart's characterization of SpaceX: rockets are merely the entry ticket; the real opportunity lies in orbital data centers, space-based solar power, and the ensuing space economy. At the same time, she acknowledges that execution risk and schedule slippage are genuine uncertainties.
2. On Tesla: investors are being asked to pay too high a price for the "potential" of autonomous driving and robotics. "Patience does not mean holding forever" — after 13 years and roughly 13x realized profits, this capital could work harder elsewhere. — Chloé Darling-Stewart