Leopold Aschenbrenner’s AI hedge fund falls sharply after margin calls

Leopold Aschenbrenner, a former OpenAI researcher turned hedge fund manager, saw his AIfocused fund Situational Awareness shrink dramatically after a steep selloff in semiconductor stocks and rising margin calls. The fund had reached about $45 billion in assets earlier this month, but reports say it fell to around $10 billion after it was forced to unwind leveraged positions, including bets on SK Hynix and CoreWeave, which were sold to Citadel at a discount. Aschenbrenner became known in Silicon Valley for a 2024 essay arguing that artificial general intelligence could arrive within years. He raised money from prominent tech investors and built a large position book tied to the AI trade, but critics had questioned his lack of prior moneymanagement experience and his use of high leverage.