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Situational Awareness filing shows AI bets before forced portfolio sale to Citadel
CNBC • • general
Key Points:
- Leopold Aschenbrenner's hedge fund, Situational Awareness, heavily invested in AI-related stocks like Sandisk, Micron Technology, Bloom Energy, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, and Nebius Group just before these stocks suffered major losses in July.
- The fund's largest U.S.-listed position, Sandisk, dropped nearly 47% in July, while other key holdings also saw significant declines, contributing to the fund's near-collapse.
- Situational Awareness's strategy focused on owning companies supplying AI infrastructure while shorting software firms vulnerable to AI disruption, a tactic that yielded over 1,000% gains before the July selloff.
- The sudden market reversal, combined with leverage and losses on other portfolio segments, caused a liquidity crisis, forcing the fund to sell much of its holdings to Citadel at a discount, shrinking assets from $45 billion to about $10 billion.
- The regulatory filing only reflects U.S.-listed long positions as of June 30 and does not fully reveal the fund's total exposures or the trades leading to its losses.
