Via thedailyupside.com
Ken Griffin's hedge fund giant picks up equity positions from Leopold Aschenbrenner's AI-focused fund, which has been one of the most spectacular performers in recent market history.
Citadel, one of the largest and most powerful hedge funds on the planet, has acquired a stock portfolio from Situational Awareness LP, the AI-focused fund founded by Leopold Aschenbrenner that turned heads with returns most managers only dream about.
The move comes after Situational Awareness reportedly took significant losses on certain AI positions, a reminder that even a fund with over 1,000% returns since inception isn’t immune to the sector’s violent swings.
The fund that broke the scoreboard #
Founded in late 2024 by Aschenbrenner, a former OpenAI researcher who became one of the loudest voices on the trajectory of artificial intelligence, the fund has grown to over $20 billion in assets under management as of mid-2026.
The fund posted a 439% gain in just the first half of 2026 alone. Its most recent 13F filing showed roughly $13.7 billion in 13F securities, with heavy allocations to AI infrastructure plays like Bloom Energy and Nvidia, along with positions in crypto miners. An earlier filing from February 2026 revealed approximately $5.5 billion in US equity exposure, almost entirely concentrated in AI infrastructure stocks.
The strategy was simple in concept but required conviction most portfolio managers don’t have: go extremely long on the companies building the physical and digital backbone for AI, and hedge with puts against semiconductor stocks where valuations looked stretched.
Why Citadel is picking up the pieces #
Citadel, with its multi-strategy approach and massive risk infrastructure, is uniquely positioned to absorb positions that might be too painful for a younger, more concentrated fund to hold through drawdowns.
For Situational Awareness, selling a stock portfolio to Citadel could serve multiple purposes. It frees up capital, reduces concentration risk, and potentially locks in gains on positions that have already delivered enormous returns even if recent performance has been rougher.
What the AI investment landscape looks like now #
Situational Awareness’s 13F filings tell a story about where the smart money thinks AI value actually lives. The fund’s positions in Bloom Energy suggest a bet on the energy infrastructure required to power massive data centers. Its crypto miner holdings point to the thesis that GPU-intensive operations, whether for AI training or digital asset mining, share overlapping infrastructure economics.
When a fund with Situational Awareness’s track record takes losses severe enough to prompt a portfolio sale, it highlights just how volatile concentrated AI bets remain, even when the underlying thesis proves correct over longer timeframes. When Citadel steps in as a buyer, it validates that the positions themselves retain fundamental value.
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