Aschenbrenner's AI fund turns red again after return

Leopold Aschenbrenner, who runs the Situational Awareness hedge fund, returned after losing billions in July—and his fund is already in the red again.

CNBC reported on Friday that, six weeks after Aschenbrenner's historic collapse, Situational Awareness had been repurchasing AI stocks and leveraged options on tech shares.

Come Monday's opening, all six tickers associated with the fund had fallen, with declines of up to 8% from Friday's close.

Situational Awareness remains the fund under Aschenbrenner's management, even after AI valuations collapsed in July, wiping billions from his portfolio.

Despite a widely publicized implosion that ranks among the most dramatic in fund manager history, Situational Awareness quietly purchased options on AMD, Bloom Energy, and CoreWeave this month. The fund also added leveraged exposure to other AI names including SK Hynix, SanDisk, and the Roundhill Memory ETF.

According to CNBC sources, those purchases were made between September 2 and 10.

The Monday after that report, those six names opened with losses of 5-8% amid a broad AI selloff.

Aschenbrenner's AI trades faltering once more

The six tickers did not drop due to Aschenbrenner's activity; instead, an apocalyptic essay by Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei—who predicts AI will dominate the internet in 6-12 months—went viral.

Elon Musk expressed agreement, and Sam Altman also endorsed the concept.

Monday's market coverage described the selloff as a rotation from crowded AI positions. Donald Trump also commented on the discussion.

News of Aschenbrenner's re-entry emerged on Friday, and by Monday all his holdings had declined.

• AMD's closing price on the day of the CNBC report was $516.13; it opened Monday near $486, a drop of about 6%.
• Bloom Energy lost 7%.
• CoreWeave and SanDisk each declined approximately 7%.
• SK Hynix and the Roundhill Memory ETF both fell around 8%.

A former OpenAI researcher, Aschenbrenner started Situational Awareness in 2024 with roughly $225 million.

Supporters included Stripe co-founders Patrick and John Collison, ex-GitHub CEO Nat Friedman, and investor Daniel Gross.

By employing leverage of up to 400%, Aschenbrenner expanded his portfolio and secured additional capital, reaching over $45 billion under management by early July.

But within weeks, he abruptly lost most of it.

During July, AI stocks gave back a large portion of the gains they had made in the first half of 2026.

That month, shares of Nebius, SanDisk, Micron, and CoreWeave each dropped over one-third, triggering margin calls and unwinding across technology funds.

Fire sale liquidation and prime broker switch

Ken Griffin's Citadel acquired the majority of Situational Awareness's holdings at a significant discount—reportedly after the portfolio had fallen to around $10 billion, described by the Financial Times as the largest dollar loss in hedge fund history.

JPMorgan Chase, which had provided leverage financing, subsequently cut off the fund. Aschenbrenner then transferred his prime brokerage to boutique firm Clear Street.

Leopold Is Back: Situational Awareness Rerunning Exact Same Trades Which Blew It Up A Month Ago https://t.co/J7kfCm3Xar

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) September 11, 2026

This month's comeback strategy was meant to be different. Instead of traditional margin, the fund has been reportedly using 'flex options'—fully paid contracts that limit losses to the premium.

This change in instruments stems from Aschenbrenner's pledge to adopt a more conservative risk model, though its timing appears poor given the weekend selloff, irrespective of the leverage ratio.