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Aschenbrenner's Situational Awareness Makes $400M Private Bet After Near-Collapse
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Leopold Aschenbrenner's hedge fund, Situational Awareness, has made a $400 million investment in an undisclosed privately held company, adding to a $100 million stake taken the prior month. The investment closed just days after the fund narrowly avoided collapse when lenders issued margin calls following a rapid decline in its public technology holdings. The fund had used up to 400% leverage on AI infrastructure stocks like SK Hynix and CoreWeave, which lost value sharply. Aschenbrenner reached an agreement with Ken Griffin's Citadel to divest most public holdings, settling debts while preserving private investments. Fund assets dropped from $45 billion to about $10 billion. In a letter to investors, Aschenbrenner pledged to learn from the experience and noted he is personally invested alongside backers. Investors include Greenoaks founder Neil Mehta and others.
Source report
Cris Tolomia Thu, August 6, 2026 at 6:44 AM PDT 2 min read
Leopold Aschenbrenner's hedge fund, Situational Awareness, has made a $400 million investment in an undisclosed privately held company, according to Bloomberg. The investment closed Tuesday, just days after the fund narrowly avoided collapse when lenders began issuing margin calls.
The new investment adds to a $100 million stake Situational Awareness had taken in the same company the prior month, Bloomberg reported, citing people who requested anonymity. The identity of the company was not disclosed.
Rebuilding After a Near Collapse
The move is the first sign of how Aschenbrenner intends to rebuild after his fund was pushed to the brink last week, when a rapid decline in its public technology holdings triggered escalating collateral demands from banks across Wall Street. While scrambling to raise the necessary cash, he weighed offloading some of the fund's positions in private companies.
He eventually reached an agreement with Ken Griffin's Citadel to divest most of the fund's publicly traded holdings — a transaction that freed him to settle his debts with lenders while preserving the fund's private investments. When the turmoil subsided, the fund's total assets had dropped to around $10 billion, down from $45 billion at the beginning of July.
Leverage and Portfolio Losses
Situational Awareness had used as much as 400% leverage and built its public portfolio around bets on AI infrastructure companies — among them SK Hynix and CoreWeave — that lost value sharply this month. Bearish wagers on software companies also went against the fund.
Its top disclosed positions, including Nebius Group, Sandisk, Micron, and CoreWeave, each shed more than 35% of their value. Before this month's decline, the fund had posted gains of more than 1,000% since its inception in July 2024, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Aschenbrenner's Response
In a letter to investors on Friday, Aschenbrenner said the fund took the steps needed to survive and pledged to draw lessons from the experience.
"I will make it my mission to ensure that we learn the necessary lessons from this experience."
He added that he is personally invested alongside his backers, with the bulk of his own capital in the fund, and has agreed to hold one-on-one calls with any investors who want to speak with him this week.
Key Investors
Investors in Situational Awareness include:
- Greenoaks founder Neil Mehta
- The foundation of XN founder Gaurav Kapadia
- Tiger Global Management's former head of public equities Feroz Dewan
- D1 Capital Partners founder Dan Sundheim
— according to the Wall Street Journal.
A representative for Situational Awareness declined to comment.
Source
Yahoo FinanceWestern
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