AI hedge fund Situational Awareness may have sold its public portfolio, but it still has its Anthropic shares
The former OpenAI researcher’s fund was forced to unwind public equities after leveraged public bets plummeted. But he still has cards to play.
Situational Awareness, a hedge fund formed by former OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner, has sold the majority of its public stock portfolio to Ken Griffin’s Citadel following steep losses over the past month, The Wall Street Journal reported earlier on Thursday. It’s a big comedown for the rising star who has been described as both “scarily smart,” and “brash.”
German-born Aschenbrenner, who is 25, had no prior trading experience before launching the fund in 2024. He gained prominence for his investment thesis after publishing essays arguing that scaling AI would require a major build-up in semiconductors, compute, memory, and energy infrastructure.
He joined OpenAI’s “superalignment” team in 2023, two years after graduating as valedictorian from Columbia at 19 (he enrolled at age 15). But he was dismissed from the company a year later over what it described as an improper disclosure of internal information. At the time, that team was led by OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever and AI researcher Jan Leike. Soon after, Sutskever left to start his own company , Leike joined rival Anthropic, and Aschenbrenner launched his fund.
Things couldn’t have been going better for Situational Awareness until very recently. The fund returned 439% for the year through June, Financial Times reported. Assets under management reportedly grew to as much as $45 billion during their peak before the fund’s positions began dropping sharply amid a broader decline in AI infrastructure investments, CNBC reported.
Even after losses mounted, Aschenbrenner didn’t flinch. In a July 24 letter to investors seen by FT , he called the selloff one of the best buying opportunities since early last year and invited clients to commit fresh capital starting August 1. According to Bloomberg, the appeal didn’t garner the commitments he’d hoped would materialize.
Some of the hardest-hit stocks held by the fund included memory chip producers SK Hynix and Sandisk, clean energy developer Bloom Energy, and neocloud provider Nebius Group, all of which have plummeted by more than 30% over the past month. AI infrastructure equities fell as public investors grew concerned that massive capital expenditures weren’t translating into near-term revenue. The fund’s losses were amplified by leverage, a common hedge fund strategy of using borrowed money to buy stocks.
After Citadel bought the bulk of those holdings, Situational Awareness’ overall assets fell to roughly $10 billion , Bloomberg reported, down from around $20 billion in recent months, per an earlier WSJ report.
Situational Awareness raised several hundred million dollars at its outset. Early backers of the fund include quant-trading firm Jane Street, Stripe co-founders Patrick and John Collison, and Meta executives Daniel Gross and Nat Friedman.
Citadel’s purchase fits a familiar pattern for Citadel. Ken Griffin’s hedge fund has a reputation for stepping in to snap up attractive assets when leveraged players are having to unwind themselves. Even before picking up some of Situational Awareness’ holdings, Citadel’s portfolio featured some of the same AI infrastructure bets , suggesting that, like Aschenbrenner, Griffin expects the sector to recover and has the ability to wait it out.
Situational Awareness did not, however, sell its investments in private companies, according to multiple reports. Most notably, it continues to hold a stake in Anthropic that’s right now valued at $5 billion, according to Bloomberg, and which many would view as an asset that continues to appreciate. Indeed, Anthropic was last valued at $965 billion in a Series H round in May, and it’s expected to go public as soon as October , potentially at an even higher valuation . It’s conceivable that a windfall from the sale of those shares could offset some of the hedge fund’s public-market losses.
Other private investments in the portfolio of Situational Awareness include chipmaker MatX and AI data center startup Fluidstack, which was reportedly in talks in April to raise a new round at an $18 billion valuation .
TechCrunch has reached out to Aschenbrenner for comment.
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission . This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.
Marina Temkin is a venture capital and startups reporter at TechCrunch. Prior to joining TechCrunch, she wrote about VC for PitchBook and Venture Capital Journal. Earlier in her career, Marina was a financial analyst and earned a CFA charterholder designation.
You can contact or verify outreach from Marina by emailing marina.temkin@techcrunch.com or via encrypted message at +1 347-683-3909 on Signal.
Scale faster. Grow your portfolio. Gain practical expertise. No matter your goal, Disrupt can empower you. Save up to $330 toda y!
Claude Opus 5 became downright ruthless when tasked with running a vending machine Julie Bort
Claude Opus 5 became downright ruthless when tasked with running a vending machine
Claude Opus 5 became downright ruthless when tasked with running a vending machine
Sam Altman is ready to decelerate Tim Fernholz
PSA: Your Claude shared chats and Artifacts may have ended up on Google Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai
PSA: Your Claude shared chats and Artifacts may have ended up on Google
PSA: Your Claude shared chats and Artifacts may have ended up on Google
Librarians are hosting viral ‘Avoiding AI’ workshops for people who are fed up with Big Tech Amanda Silberling
Librarians are hosting viral ‘Avoiding AI’ workshops for people who are fed up with Big Tech
Librarians are hosting viral ‘Avoiding AI’ workshops for people who are fed up with Big Tech
SpaceX launches new V3 Starlink satellites but suffers another booster failure Sean O'Kane
SpaceX launches new V3 Starlink satellites but suffers another booster failure
SpaceX launches new V3 Starlink satellites but suffers another booster failure
Prentis, new AI lab co-founded by Reid Hoffman, Mark Pincus in talks to raise $100M Marina Temkin
Prentis, new AI lab co-founded by Reid Hoffman, Mark Pincus in talks to raise $100M
Prentis, new AI lab co-founded by Reid Hoffman, Mark Pincus in talks to raise $100M
US accuses American of allegedly wiping his phone using a ‘duress’ password during border search Zack Whittaker
US accuses American of allegedly wiping his phone using a ‘duress’ password during border search
US accuses American of allegedly wiping his phone using a ‘duress’ password during border search
Pontos-chave
- A venda de ativos públicos pelo fundo reflete a volatilidade do mercado de tecnologia e IA, impactando a percepção de risco entre investidores brasileiros.
- A trajetória de Aschenbrenner serve como um alerta sobre a importância de uma gestão financeira sólida em um mercado emergente.
- A manutenção de ações da Anthropic sugere uma estratégia de longo prazo, que pode ressoar com investidores que acreditam na recuperação do setor.
Análise editorial
A situação do fundo Situational Awareness, liderado por Leopold Aschenbrenner, destaca a volatilidade do mercado de tecnologia e investimentos em IA, especialmente em um momento em que o Brasil busca se consolidar como um hub de inovação tecnológica. A venda de ativos públicos após perdas significativas é um sinal de alerta para investidores que apostam em setores emergentes, como o de infraestrutura de IA. Essa dinâmica pode influenciar a percepção de risco entre investidores brasileiros, que podem se tornar mais cautelosos em relação a investimentos em tecnologia, especialmente em um cenário onde a infraestrutura de IA ainda está em desenvolvimento.
Além disso, a trajetória de Aschenbrenner, que passou de um promissor pesquisador da OpenAI a um gestor de fundos em dificuldades, ilustra os desafios enfrentados por novos entrantes no mercado financeiro. Para o Brasil, onde o ecossistema de startups e tecnologia está em crescimento, a história de Aschenbrenner pode servir como um alerta sobre a importância de uma gestão financeira sólida e de uma compreensão profunda dos mercados antes de fazer apostas significativas.
O fato de que o fundo ainda mantém ações da Anthropic sugere que Aschenbrenner pode estar apostando em um futuro mais promissor para a IA, mesmo em meio a perdas. Isso pode indicar uma estratégia de longo prazo que pode ressoar com investidores que acreditam na recuperação do setor. Para o Brasil, onde a IA está se tornando uma prioridade em várias indústrias, a capacidade de identificar e investir em tecnologias emergentes será crucial para o sucesso futuro.
Por fim, a situação atual do fundo pode levar a uma reavaliação das expectativas em relação ao retorno sobre investimentos em IA. À medida que as empresas buscam equilibrar gastos com infraestrutura e geração de receita, o mercado brasileiro pode observar um movimento semelhante, onde investidores e startups precisam alinhar suas expectativas com a realidade do mercado, evitando a armadilha da supervalorização que muitas vezes acompanha setores em ascensão.
O que esta cobertura entrega
- Atribuicao clara de fonte com link para a publicacao original.
- Enquadramento editorial sobre relevancia, impacto e proximos desdobramentos.
- Revisao de legibilidade, contexto e duplicacao antes da publicacao.
Fonte original:
TechCrunch AISobre este artigo
Este artigo foi curado e publicado pelo AIDaily como parte da nossa cobertura editorial sobre desenvolvimentos em inteligência artificial. O conteúdo é baseado na fonte original citada abaixo, enriquecido com contexto e análise editorial. Ferramentas automatizadas podem auxiliar tradução e estruturação inicial, mas a decisão de publicar, a revisão factual e o enquadramento de contexto seguem responsabilidade editorial.
Saiba mais sobre nosso processo editorial