- Leopold Aschenbrenner’s Situational Awareness fund re-entered AI and tech options in September, just weeks after losing billions in a July blow-up.
- After CNBC reported the new positions on Friday, all six of the fund’s tickers dropped 5-8% by Monday’s open amid a broad AI sell-off.
- The sell-off was triggered by an apocalyptic essay from Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, not directly by Aschenbrenner’s trades, according to reports.
Leopold Aschenbrenner, the former OpenAI researcher running hedge fund Situational Awareness, is already losing money again after CNBC reported Friday that the fund had re-entered AI and tech options just six weeks after a historic July collapse erased billions.
The fund quietly bought options tied to AMD, Bloom Energy, and CoreWeave between September 2 and 10, along with leveraged exposure to SK Hynix, SanDisk, and the Roundhill Memory ETF. Consequently, by Monday’s open, every one of those six tickers had collapsed, down as much as 8% from Friday’s close.
The sell-off was not directly caused by Aschenbrenner but rather a viral essay from Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, who believes that AI will take over the internet within 6-12 months. Elon Musk agreed with the assessment, and Sam Altman also backed the idea.
Market coverage NVIDIA-pulls-back/”>framed the resulting decline as a rotation out of crowded AI trades. Meanwhile, AMD closed at $516.13 on Friday and opened Monday around $486, down roughly 6%, while Bloom Energy fell 7%.
CoreWeave and SanDisk each fell roughly 7%, and SK Hynix and the Roundhill Memory ETF each fell about 8%. Aschenbrenner launched Situational Awareness in 2024 with about $225 million, growing it to manage over $45 billion by July using leverage as high as 400%.
He then lost the majority within weeks as AI stocks retraced gains from the first half of 2026. Ken Griffin’s Citadel bought the bulk of the portfolio at a discount in what the Financial Times called the largest dollar loss in hedge fund history.
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