Situational Awareness—an AI-focused hedge fund run by former OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner—made headlines on Thursday when it sold off investments and was unwinding trades after suffering massive losses on AI and software stocks, according to CNBC, who spoke with people familiar with the situation.
Fast Company has reached out to Situational Awareness for comment.
The $24 billion hedge fund has sold the bulk of its public equities to Ken Griffin’s $71 billion Citadel fund, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The massive deal was reportedly forged over the last 24 hours. Situational Awareness, which has a $5 billion private stake in AI giant Anthropic, will continue to run as a private investment firm, according to the Financial Times.
Aschenbrenner, a 25-year-old from Germany, launched his San Francisco-based fund in September 2024, after working on the Superalignment team at OpenAI—from which he was reportedly fired, according to Fortune.
The news comes after Situational Awareness reportedly suffered heavy losses in the last few weeks, as AI and semiconductor stocks took a battering. Those familiar with the situation told CNBC some of those positions were in South Korean memory chip maker SK Hynix (Nasdaq: SKHY)—whose stock was up 16% midday Thursday); and short positions in software companies such as Adobe Inc. (Nasdaq: ADBE)—which was down over 6% at the time of this writing.
As a result, the fund was trying to raise cash to meet margin requirements, which the firm’s prime brokers—including Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase—were working on, according to CNBC’s sources.
