Leopold Aschenbrenner, media’s AI golden boy investor, unloads all public stock to Citadel after facing margin calls

Leopold Aschenbrenner, the 24-year-old founder of hedge fund Situational Awareness and former OpenAI employee, sold all of the fund's public stock to Citadel after facing margin calls amid a market correction for AI companies. The fund, which had grown to $45 billion, retains a stake in Anthropic, where Aschenbrenner's wife Avital Balwit serves as chief of staff to CEO Dario Amodei.

There’s no bigger hype machine that the business media, who are wont to anoint twenty year olds as the “ next Steve Jobs https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jan/04/elizabeth-holmes-from-next-steve-jobs-to-convicted-fraudster ” Elizabeth Holmes or the “ next Warren Buffett https://www.wsj.com/finance/being-the-next-warren-buffett-sounds-like-an-honor-it-is-more-of-a-curse-b071c4bb?st=UVEnv2&reflink=desktopwebshare permalink ” Sam Bankman Fried . Next up is Leopold Aschenbrenner, a former OpenAI employee turned hedge fund founder of Situational Awareness, who just last week was featured in the Wall Street Journal: In June, the Wall Street Journal called him the “ 24-year-old AI Wiz .” The hedge fund was reportedly on a tear on AI-related investments, expanding in value to $45 billion as reported by CNBC https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/30/leopold-aschenbrenners-hedge-fund-is-facing-steep-ai-losses.html . But Situational Awareness reportedly faced margin calls from its brokers due to the recent market correction for AI-related companies. That forced Aschenbrenner to sell off all the fund’s stocks in publicly traded companies to Ken Griffin’s Citadel. Situational Awareness still has a stake in Anthropic https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/30/leopold-aschenbrenners-hedge-fund-is-facing-steep-ai-losses.html , however. CNBC reports that Aschenbrenner is married to Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei’s chief of staff, Avital Balwit.