Leopold Aschenbrenner's AI hedge fund Situational Awareness faces significant losses and sells assets to Citadel
Leopold Aschenbrenner, a 24-year-old former OpenAI researcher, is navigating a significant financial downturn for his hedge fund, Situational Awareness. The fund, which was built on Aschenbrenner's thesis that rapid advances in artificial intelligence will require a vast expansion of computing power and infrastructure, has suffered heavy losses on AI stocks and a bad bet against software companies. Situational Awareness has reportedly sold a large portion of its public equity portfolio to Ken Griffin's Citadel to meet margin requirements. The fund's value has dropped from $45 billion at the start of July to $10 billion, following the sale of assets to Griffin. These losses are significantly larger than the record trading losses of Archegos Capital Management. Aschenbrenner, who graduated as valedictorian from Columbia University, became prominent for his essays on machine intelligence. Despite the fund's current turmoil, Aschenbrenner remains a confident figure in the AI trade, having built the firm around the idea of reaching superintelligence by the end of the decade.