The End of This Bull Market's 'Greatest Myth': 'AI Stock God' Leopold Crushed in Weeks, Citadel Takes Over $16 Billion in Stock Assets
The once-celebrated "AI stock god," 24-year-old Leopold Aschenbrenner, has seen his hedge fund's spectacular rise end in a dramatic collapse. His fund, Situational Awareness (SA), built a narrative around explosive AI infrastructure demand, raising $45 billion and achieving a 439% return in H1 2026 by heavily leveraging (4x) concentrated long positions in stocks like SK Hynix and CoreWeave, while shorting legacy software firms.
In July 2026, a sharp reversal hit AI stocks, triggering massive losses in both long and short positions. Facing margin calls from banks, SA was forced to sell its entire $16 billion public market portfolio in a 36-hour fire sale. Citadel acquired the assets at a significant discount, one of Wall Street's largest emergency stock trades.
SA's assets under management plummeted from a $45 billion peak to roughly $10 billion, retained entirely in private holdings like a stake in Anthropic. The episode underscores that being right on a macro trend does not guarantee survival, highlighting the critical risks of extreme concentration and high leverage without a sufficient buffer against market shifts.
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