Citadel Absorbs AI Portfolio from Leopold Aschenbrenner's Fund Amid Margins Pressure

Citadel, a $71B hedge fund led by Ken Griffin, has acquired a $10B portfolio of AI-related stocks from Situational Awareness LP, an AI-focused fund founded by Leopold Aschenbrenner. The deal was completed on July 30 and transferred roughly $5.5B in equity positions, carved out of a portfolio that once achieved a staggering 439% net return through June 30.

The original portfolio rode a concentrated bet on AI infrastructure stocks to eye-popping returns before mounting margin pressures forced aggressive deleveraging. The acquired portfolio included substantial positions in Broadcom, Intel, CoreWeave, and SK Hynix, all names deeply embedded in the AI compute supply chain.

Buried within the equity slice was approximately $1B in Bitcoin mining stocks, a fact that may have prevented a messier selloff in the mining sector as Citadel absorbed these positions rather than letting them hit the open market. Situational Awareness retained its Anthropic stake and other private equity positions, leaving only the public equity positions to change hands.