AI Hedge Fund Situational Awareness Sells Public Portfolio, Retains Anthropic Stake
Situational Awareness, an AI-focused hedge fund founded by Leopold Aschenbrenner, a former OpenAI researcher, has sold most of its public stock to Ken Griffin's Citadel after experiencing heavy losses last month, as reported by The Wall Street Journal. The fund, which had an impressive 439% return by June and reached $45 billion in assets, suffered a significant drop due to a downturn in AI infrastructure stocks, with companies like SK Hynix and Sandisk losing over 30%. Following the sale, its assets decreased to about $10 billion. However, it still holds private investments, including a $5 billion stake in Anthropic, valued at $965 billion in May and expected to go public by October. Aschenbrenner, only 25, started the fund in 2024 without any trading experience and gained attention after leaving OpenAI in 2023 for mishandling internal information.
Key facts
- Situational Awareness sold majority of public portfolio to Citadel after losses.
- Fund returned 439% through June, peaked at $45 billion AUM.
- Hardest-hit stocks: SK Hynix, Sandisk, Bloom Energy, Nebius Group (down >30%).
- Assets fell to ~$10 billion after Citadel purchase.
- Retains Anthropic stake valued at $5 billion; Anthropic expected to go public in October.
- Other private investments: MatX, Fluidstack.
- Founder Leopold Aschenbrenner, 25, no prior trading experience.
- Early backers: Jane Street, Patrick and John Collison, Daniel Gross, Nat Friedman.
Entities
Artists
- Leopold Aschenbrenner
Institutions
- Situational Awareness
- Citadel
- OpenAI
- Anthropic
- Jane Street
- Stripe
- Meta
- SK Hynix
- Sandisk
- Bloom Energy
- Nebius Group
- MatX
- Fluidstack
- The Wall Street Journal
- Financial Times
- CNBC
- Bloomberg
- TechCrunch
Locations
- United States