Aschenbrenner's fund lost $30B in a month; Citadel bought the positions at a discount
APPSO · wechat · 2026-08-18
Leopold Aschenbrenner, the 24-year-old ex-OpenAI researcher famous for his 165-page "Situational Awareness" essay, grew his eponymous fund from $1.5B to $45B+ (near $100B with leverage). In July it lost 67%, erasing nearly $30B.
The blowup came from a "Texas hedge": long SanDisk, Micron and other AI infra names (56% of the US equity book in SanDisk+Micron alone) while shorting Adobe, AppLovin, Figma—both sides betting on the same AI narrative. July's AI infra rout (SanDisk -47%, Micron -29%) plus a software short squeeze triggered margin calls. The fund nearly sold $5B of Anthropic shares at a 20% discount with a 12-hour deadline before striking a July 30 deal with Citadel, which took the leveraged positions at 10% off. Jane Street lost $7B on its $2.5B investment, posting its worst month ever at -$15B. The fund still manages $15B and is up 80% YTD.
Related event: Ex-OpenAI researcher loses $35 billion betting on AI stocks(2 posts)→
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