{"slug": "ken-griffin-says-citadel-unwound-80-of-situational-awareness-risk-made-4b-worth", "title": "Ken Griffin says Citadel unwound 80% of Situational Awareness risk, made $4B worth of trades", "summary": "Ken Griffin said in a letter to clients Friday that Citadel has unwound more than 80% of the aggregate risk tied to its purchase of assets from AI hedge fund Situational Awareness, conducting over 100 block trades worth more than $4 billion in three weeks. The firm bought the portfolio at a roughly 10% discount after Situational Awareness founder Leopold Aschenbrenner was forced to sell all public stock positions in a 24-hour firesale in late July. Griffin also reported that Citadel's flagship multistrategy Wellington fund saw a 5.94% return in July, its best monthly performance since 2022.", "body_md": "# Ken Griffin says Citadel unwound 80% of Situational Awareness risk, made $4B worth of trades\n\nSee more of our coverage in your search results.\n\n[Add The New York Post on Google](https://www.google.com/preferences/source?q=nypost.com)\n\nKen Griffin said in a letter to clients Friday that Citadel has unwound more than 80% of the “aggregate risk” tied to its last-minute purchase of assets from AI hedge fund Situational Awareness.\n\nIn a letter [obtained by the Financial Times](https://www.ft.com/content/1603577e-89d8-4cfa-884b-b83fbb8dd20e?emailId=20b97b8a-ad7d-44b4-b173-dffc6ae0ee0e&segmentId=3d08be62-315f-7330-5bbd-af33dc531acb), Griffin revealed the firm has conducted more than 100 block trades worth over $4 billion in just three weeks since the purchase – implying Citadel was able to successfully flip AI wunderkind Leopold Aschenbrenner’s flailing portfolio.\n\nAschenbrenner, the 25-year-old “Nostradamus of AI,” had [grown his hedge fund to $20 billion](https://nypost.com/2026/06/08/business/meet-the-nostradamus-of-ai-who-built-a-20-billion-hedge-fund-before-turning-25/) – despite having no prior Wall Street experience – by [betting it all on AI](https://nypost.com/2026/08/17/us-news/ai-investors-45b-hedge-fund-implodes-after-risky-chip-stock-bets/). His firm held a $5.7 billion stake in SanDisk, a $5.6 billion one in Micron and short positions on some software stocks.\n\nBut in late July, after weeks of rocky trading sessions for AI and tech stocks, Aschenbrenner was forced to offload all of his public stock positions in a 24-hour fireside sale to Citadel.\n\n“Over our nearly thirty-six-year history, we have prided ourselves on being front-footed and proactive during periods of market dislocation,” Griffin wrote in the Friday letter. “Only Citadel could have delivered a solution of this scale on this timeline.”\n\nCitadel did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.\n\nCitadel bought the assets at a roughly 10% discount, hoping it could quickly flip the positions once the market rebounded, according to the Financial Times.\n\nSince Griffin’s firm purchased the portfolio, the AI trade has started to bounce back. Shares of SanDisk and Micron have regained some losses.\n\nCitadel’s billions of dollars’ worth of stock sales in just a few weeks is a sign the hedge fund reaped massive profits from the 11th-hour buy.\n\nGriffin also said in the letter that the firm’s flagship multistrategy Wellington fund saw a 5.94% return in July, its best monthly performance since 2022.\n\nWall Street and Silicon Valley bigwigs had rushed to invest in Situational Awareness, including Neil Mehta, co-founder of venture-capital firm Greenoaks; Dan Sundheim, founder of hedge fund D1 Capital Partners; investor Gaurav Kapadia’s foundation; and Feroz Dewan, former head of public equities at Tiger Global Management, according to the Wall Street Journal.\n\nSome of these hotshot [investors had warned Aschenbrenner](https://nypost.com/2026/08/05/business/some-investors-saw-warning-signs-before-wunderkinds-situational-awareness-fund-nosedived-report/) – who was previously fired from OpenAI – about the risks of his investing strategy, according to the Journal.\n\nOthers were growing frustrated about the Germany-born founder’s lack of communication and disclosures, since Situational Awareness only disclosed returns quarterly, not monthly like most other funds, the report said.\n\nSituational Awareness had borrowed massively to finance its AI bets – and this backfired over the summer as holdings nosedived and some investors asked for their money back.\n\nJane Street, one of Wall Street’s top investment banks and an investor in Situational Awareness, posted a [$15 billion loss in July](https://nypost.com/2026/08/14/business/nostradamus-of-ai-blamed-for-massive-15b-loss-at-secretive-trading-giant-jane-street/) following the fund’s implosion.\n\nIn a letter in late July, Aschenbrenner told investors that Situational Awareness was still up 80% over the year. He had earlier said it was up more than 400% for the first six months of 2026.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/ken-griffin-says-citadel-unwound-80-of-situational-awareness-risk-made-4b-worth", "canonical_source": "https://nypost.com/2026/08/21/business/ken-griffin-says-citadel-unwound-80-of-situational-awareness-risk-in-4b-worth-of-trades/", "published_at": "2026-08-21 19:14:48+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-08-21 19:44:17.226546+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence"], "entities": ["Ken Griffin", "Citadel", "Situational Awareness", "Leopold Aschenbrenner", "SanDisk", "Micron", "Wellington fund", "Jane Street"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/ken-griffin-says-citadel-unwound-80-of-situational-awareness-risk-made-4b-worth", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/ken-griffin-says-citadel-unwound-80-of-situational-awareness-risk-made-4b-worth.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/ken-griffin-says-citadel-unwound-80-of-situational-awareness-risk-made-4b-worth.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/ken-griffin-says-citadel-unwound-80-of-situational-awareness-risk-made-4b-worth.jsonld"}}