{"slug": "nostradamus-of-ai-promised-to-buy-wife-a-galaxy-then-his-45b-hedge-fund-blew-up", "title": "‘Nostradamus of AI’ promised to buy wife a galaxy — then his $45B hedge fund blew up", "summary": "Leopold Aschenbrenner, the 24-year-old founder of the $45 billion hedge fund Situational Awareness, saw his fund plunge 67% through July 30, forcing him to sell most of its public-stock portfolio to Ken Griffin's Citadel just days before his wedding to Avital Balwit, chief of staff to Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei. Aschenbrenner, who previously worked at OpenAI and the FTX Future Fund, had promised to buy his wife a galaxy, and his fund's collapse marks a dramatic fall for the self-styled 'Nostradamus of AI.'", "body_md": "# ‘Nostradamus of AI’ promised to buy wife a galaxy — then his $45B hedge fund blew up\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\nAI savants are known for their bold predictions.\n\nLeopold Aschenbrenner, the so-called “Nostradamus of AI,” took things to another level, reportedly promising his future wife he would someday buy her not a yacht or a mansion, but a galaxy.\n\nThe 24-year-old German-born wunderkind married the chief of staff to Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei earlier this month.\n\nJust days earlier, his massively leveraged hedge fund imploded — plunging 67% through July 30 and forcing him to [unload most of its public-stock portfolio to Ken Griffin’s Citadel.](https://nypost.com/2026/08/01/business/nostradamus-of-ai-leopold-aschenbrenner-didnt-have-the-crystal-ball-seeing-hedge-fund-portfolio-dip-67/)\n\nAschenbrenner signed the paperwork for the emergency sale early Thursday morning before heading to Carmel, Calif., for his wedding that weekend, according to the Wall Street Journal.\n\nOne speaker reportedly thanked Griffin “for making it all possible,” while another guest gushed about Aschenbrenner’s promise to someday buy his new wife a galaxy.\n\nBuying a chunk of universe had been on Aschenbrenner’s mind for years, according to the article, with the investor repeatedly mentioning the idea to incredulous friends.\n\nAschenbrenner did a stint for Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX Future Fund and stayed with his now-wife, Avital Balwit, at the 600-acre Bahamas resort where FTX executives lived.\n\nAschenbrenner and Bankman-Fried were members of 17 Signal group chats together — including “EA [effective altruism] Discussion” and “Anthropic Chat” — while the Future Fund team met with SBF and members of his inner circle in a sixth-floor penthouse, according to documents from Bankman-Fried’s criminal trial cited by the Journal.\n\nAschenbrenner resigned from the Future Fund with his colleagues when FTX collapsed into bankruptcy in November 2022.\n\nHe has said he and Bankman-Fried had already fallen out over disagreements involving biosecurity grants.\n\nLess than two years later, Aschenbrenner launched Situational Awareness, eventually building it into a $45 billion hedge fund before its heavily leveraged bets on AI spectacularly unraveled over the summer.\n\nThe breathtaking rise came despite Aschenbrenner having virtually no previous investing experience.\n\nThe Berlin-raised whiz kid entered Columbia University at just 15 and graduated as valedictorian at 19, becoming deeply involved along the way in the effective altruism movement and its concerns about the potentially catastrophic risks posed by advanced AI.\n\nAfter the FTX debacle, Aschenbrenner landed at OpenAI in 2023, ruffling feathers by warning about potential Chinese spies inside the company and later sent its board a memo blasting its security protocols.\n\nHe subsequently claimed he was told it was racist to raise concerns about espionage by the Chinese Communist Party, according to the Journal.\n\nOpenAI denies this.\n\nAschenbrenner’s tenure ended messily.\n\nHe was fired after sharing information that OpenAI executives considered sensitive with Holden Karnofsky, an influential figure in the effective altruism movement who is married to Anthropic President Daniela Amodei, according to the Journal.\n\nAschenbrenner has maintained that the information wasn’t confidential and claimed OpenAI had other reasons for firing him. OpenAI disputed his account.\n\n“Leopold was not fired for raising security concerns, internally or with our board,” an OpenAI spokeswoman told the Journal.\n\nAschenbrenner said he walked away from nearly $1 million in OpenAI equity rather than sign a nondisclosure agreement required to receive it.\n\nHe soon made a much bigger bet on AI.\n\nIn 2024, Aschenbrenner [published a sprawling 165-page manifesto, titled “Situational Awareness,”](https://www.forourposterity.com/situational-awareness-the-decade-ahead/) predicting the arrival of superintelligent AI and arguing that the technology would usher in one of the “most intense and volatile moments of human history.”\n\nHe then turned that thesis into an investment strategy.\n\nDespite being barely old enough to drink and having no previous professional investing experience, Aschenbrenner attracted money from heavyweight backers including trading giant Jane Street and Stripe co-founders Patrick and John Collison, according to the Journal.\n\nSituational Awareness piled into companies across the AI supply chain, including semiconductor, energy and software stocks, while also buying stakes in private companies.\n\nSituational Awareness borrowed about $3 for every $1 of capital it held, according to the Journal, leaving the fund dangerously exposed when a July tech selloff hammered its concentrated AI bets.\n\nAs the stocks sank, rival traders began noticing trouble in positions associated with the fund and Aschenbrenner found himself desperately hunting for cash to satisfy his lenders’ margin calls.\n\nAt one point, he considered selling a $3.5 billion stake in Anthropic.\n\nInstead, he struck the emergency deal to sell most of his publicly traded portfolio to Citadel at a discount.\n\nThe transaction [proved lucrative for Griffin’s hedge fund giant](https://nypost.com/2026/08/21/business/ken-griffin-says-citadel-unwound-80-of-situational-awareness-risk-in-4b-worth-of-trades/). The AI stocks Citadel acquired subsequently rallied, helping deliver its flagship fund its best month in years, according to the Journal.\n\nSituational Awareness, meanwhile, took a drastic fall through July 30.\n\nThe aftermath hit some of the sophisticated investors who had backed the young fund manager. Jane Street lost about $15 billion in July — its worst monthly loss ever, the Journal reported.\n\nFederal regulators are now scrutinizing Situational Awareness’s trading activity, though no formal allegations of wrongdoing have been made.\n\n“We are a highly-regulated business and will cooperate to the fullest extent with any regulatory request,” Situational Awareness has said.\n\nThe Post has sought comment from Aschenbrenner.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/nostradamus-of-ai-promised-to-buy-wife-a-galaxy-then-his-45b-hedge-fund-blew-up", "canonical_source": "https://nypost.com/2026/08/26/business/leopold-aschenbrenner-promised-to-buy-wife-galaxy-then-his-45b-hedge-fund-blew-up/", "published_at": "2026-08-26 18:59:29+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-08-26 19:15:55.953554+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence", "ai-startups", "ai-policy"], "entities": ["Leopold Aschenbrenner", "Situational Awareness", "Citadel", "Ken Griffin", "Avital Balwit", "Anthropic", "Dario Amodei", "OpenAI"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/nostradamus-of-ai-promised-to-buy-wife-a-galaxy-then-his-45b-hedge-fund-blew-up", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/nostradamus-of-ai-promised-to-buy-wife-a-galaxy-then-his-45b-hedge-fund-blew-up.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/nostradamus-of-ai-promised-to-buy-wife-a-galaxy-then-his-45b-hedge-fund-blew-up.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/nostradamus-of-ai-promised-to-buy-wife-a-galaxy-then-his-45b-hedge-fund-blew-up.jsonld"}}