AI investor Leopold Aschenbrenner forced to unwind all public stock positions after steep losses, sources say
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- Situational Awareness peaked at $45 billion at the start of July before sustaining significant losses on AI infrastructure longs like SK Hynix and a short position in Adobe that moved sharply against it, forcing the fund to unwind positions.
- Citadel (Ken Griffin's hedge fund) reached a deal to buy Situational Awareness's publicly traded assets, while prime brokers including Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, and JPMorgan Chase worked to meet margin requirements.
- The fund's largest Q1 holdings — Nebius Group, Sandisk, Micron, and CoreWeave — are all down more than 35% this month, compounding the drawdown.
- Leopold Aschenbrenner built the firm around his 2024 thesis that powerful AI systems would require a vast expansion of chips, memory, data centers, and electricity; the turmoil is an early stress test of that investment thesis.
- Aschenbrenner was fired from OpenAI's Superalignment team in 2024 over what the company called an improper disclosure of internal information, a characterization he has disputed, saying his dismissal followed warnings he raised about OpenAI's security practices.
- A firm spokesperson said reports that the fund was marketing its Anthropic stake were not accurate, though the article notes it was unclear whether a previously reported Anthropic sale deal was completed.
- Sources confirmed Aschenbrenner is getting married this weekend to Avital Balwit, chief of staff for Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei.
Why it matters: A $45 billion fund collapsing into a forced unwind to Citadel amplifies selling pressure on AI infrastructure plays already down 35%+ this month — Nebius, Sandisk, Micron, and CoreWeave — and validates the risk that concentrated AI-trade crowding can produce forced liquidation cascades. For Aschenbrenner personally, the unwinding comes just months after his public firing from OpenAI, turning what was the most-watched AI-investor thesis into a cautionary tale at age 25.
