Stocks● Neutral
How a 439% AI Fund Blew Up and Fed Citadel Its Stocks
Leopold Aschenbrenner's Situational Awareness lost 67% in July after AI stocks fell. Forced margin sales handed the portfolio to Ken Griffin's Citadel.
Continue with
Ken Griffin's Citadel bought the distressed public stock portfolio of Situational Awareness, the AI hedge fund run by 24-year-old former OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner. The sale came after a margin call forced the fund to sell down leveraged bets.
The fund returned 439% in the first half of the year. It was a concentrated bet on AI stocks, levered up. When AI stocks tumbled in July, the fund lost roughly 67% for the month. Prime brokers called their loans. The bulk of the public portfolio moved to Citadel on Thursday.
Aschenbrenner named the fund after a 2024 essay he wrote on AI's potential. The name became a punchline on X. "We name the fund situational awareness but lack the situational awareness to sell when we are up 2200% in 2 years," one user wrote. Another posted a clip of Elon Musk grinning next to a somber Barron Trump, captioning it "Ken Griffin: Leopold Aschenbrenner:".