Citadel buys AI fund assets after Situational Awareness plunges
What's new: Leopold Aschenbrenner's fund fell from about $45 billion to roughly $10 billion after margin pressure hit leveraged AI bets.
Citadel agreed to buy publicly traded assets from Situational Awareness after the AI-focused hedge fund was forced to unwind positions amid steep losses and margin pressure. The fund, founded by former OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner, had grown to about $45 billion at the start of July but fell to around $10 billion by Thursday, CNBC reported, after AI infrastructure holdings slumped and short bets on software stocks moved against it. Prime brokers including Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase worked with the firm as it tried to raise cash or cut positions. The portfolio had included names such as SK Hynix, Micron, CoreWeave and Sandisk, while the firm also held a private stake in Anthropic.