Leopold Aschenbrenner’s AI hedge fund, Situational Awareness, collapsed from $45 billion to around $10 billion in assets due to falling semiconductor stocks and mounting margin calls.
Aschenbrenner, a former OpenAI researcher, was forced to sell off all his leveraged public stock bets — including hard-hit names like SK Hynix and CoreWeave — to Ken Griffin's Citadel at a discount.
The crash marks a dramatic turn for Aschenbrenner, who launched the fund after gaining Silicon Valley fame with his 2024 AI manifesto, drawing scrutiny from critics over his lack of money management experience and his past ties to FTX.
