His AI fund lost 67% in a month. Thousands still copy his trades

The AI trade blew up its own poster child last month, and thousands of people decided to keep betting on him. More than 5,000 retail investors are still mirroring Leopold Aschenbrenner’s stock portfolio, Business Insider reported, even after his hedge fund nearly imploded.

They do it through Autopilot, an app that builds portfolios from the disclosed holdings of well-known investors and politicians. About $32m flowed into its Aschenbrenner strategy between the fund’s March launch and early last week, chief executive Brian Schardt told Business Insider.

When the trouble broke, Autopilot let users stay or leave. Between $3m and $5m walked out. About $28m, held by more than 5,000 people, stayed.

Why the copycats did better

The people copying Aschenbrenner have done better than Aschenbrenner. His fund, Situational Awareness, lost 67% in July. Margin calls forced him to sell most of his public holdings at a 10% discount to Ken Griffin’s Citadel. The Autopilot version lost far less. It was down about 30% in July, and has since bounced 35% off last Wednesday’s low.

The gap comes down to one thing: leverage, or the lack of it. Autopilot investors do not borrow, short, or trade derivatives. They just mirror disclosed holdings and update when new filings appear. “Ours is not leveraged, which means we don’t take the same risk that he took, which is better,” said Schardt. Unleveraged, the copy falls less in a rout and rises less in a rally. It is up 53.4% since March.

Still an all-in AI bet

The portfolio is a concentrated wager on AI infrastructure. It holds 14 stocks, with about 30% in the neocloud Nebius and roughly 12% each in CoreWeave and Bloom Energy. Those names had a rough July, knocked by jitters in Asian markets and worries about how much big tech is spending on AI. When Citadel bought Aschenbrenner’s book, the same stocks rallied, rewarding everyone who held on.

The copying is unlikely to stop soon. Autopilot tracks quarterly 13F filings, so followers sat tight through the crash, and Aschenbrenner’s next disclosure is due by 14 August. Autopilot says it will keep copying the fund as long as it trades. And if Anthropic goes public this year, one of his biggest private bets would land in reach of the copycats too.

Aschenbrenner is not done either. He has wired $400m into a Sequoia-backed company since the collapse, and Sequoia’s partners told Bloomberg he “is not going anywhere”. For now, neither are the 5,000 people trading his shadow.