Citadel buys stock portfolio from Situational Awareness after AI losses

Citadel, one of the largest and most powerful hedge funds on the planet, has acquired a stock portfolio from Situational Awareness LP, the AI-focused fund founded by Leopold Aschenbrenner that turned heads with returns most managers only dream about. The move comes after Situational Awareness reportedly took significant losses on certain AI positions, a reminder that even a fund with over 1,000% returns since inception isn’t immune to the sector’s violent swings. The fund that broke the scoreboard Founded in late 2024 by Aschenbrenner, a former OpenAI researcher who became one of the loudest voices on the trajectory of artificial intelligence, the fund has grown to over $20 billion in assets under management as of mid-2026. The fund posted a 439% gain in just the first half of 2026 alone. Its most recent 13F filing showed roughly $13.7 billion in 13F securities, with heavy allocations to AI infrastructure plays like Bloom Energy and Nvidia, along with positions in crypto miners. An earlier filing from February 2026 revealed approximately $5.5 billion in US equity exposure, almost entirely concentrated in AI infrastructure stocks. The strategy was simple in concept but required conv...