The so-called “Nostradamus of AI,” Leopold Aschenbrenner, has made a new $400 million bet on a private company – just days after the near-implosion of his hedge fund, according to a report.
Aschenbrenner’s firm, Situational Awareness, had poured $100 million into the same company last month, Bloomberg reported Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter.
The outlet said the company was part of Situational Awareness’s existing portfolio, though it was unclear which firm received the infusion.
The Post has reached out to Situational Awareness for comment.
Aschenbrenner, a former OpenAI researcher-turned-investment wunderkind, built a $45 billion hedge fund by placing major bets on the artificial intelligence boom.
But a major pullback in tech stocks triggered a wave of margin calls that nearly crushed Situational Awareness in a matter of days.
In a bid to avert disaster, the Columbia University graduate ultimately agreed to sell huge chunks of his firm’s holdings in public tech companies to billionaire Ken Griffin’s Citadel – while using the proceeds to pay off lenders and maintaining control of its stakes in privately held firms.
As of last Thursday, Situational Awareness’s holdings were valued at $10 billion – a fraction of their peak.
“We let you down this month,” Aschenbrenner wrote investors last Friday. “While we ultimately found a solution that protected the fund and you as investors, our intention in running the fund is to never find ourselves in such a position in the first place.
“We took the steps that were necessary to fight another day,” he added. “But our fund must always be structured such that we can take a loss and fight another day. I will make it my mission to ensure that we learn the necessary lessons from this experience.”
Situational Awareness’s private holdings include AI giant Anthropic, as well as lesser-known firms like Fluidstack and MatX, according to Bloomberg.
The forced fire sale occurred on the same weekend as Aschenbrenner’s wedding.
It took place in lavish Carmel-by-the-Sea in California, with dozens of high-profile Silicon Valley attendees.
