Overview
- Late in July, Ken Griffin’s Citadel purchased the bulk of Situational Awareness’s publicly traded equity holdings, leaving the fund with a much smaller public portfolio reported at about $10 billion.
- Leopold Aschenbrenner told investors that the fund fell roughly 67% in a single month, a collapse that triggered margin pressure and urgent talks with counterparties.
- The losses came from highly concentrated, 3–4× leveraged bets in memory‑chip and data‑center suppliers, where rival traders’ shorting and bank margin calls accelerated forced sales.
- Aschenbrenner retained large illiquid private stakes, most notably a multibillion‑dollar investment in Anthropic, which ties any recovery to future private liquidity events.
- The episode follows Aschenbrenner’s rapid rise after a viral 2024 essay and fast fund growth to roughly $45 billion at its peak, and it has prompted market watchers to watch for further AI‑sector repricing.