Ken Griffin’s Citadel snaps up $16 billion in AI stocks from collapsed Situational Awareness fund

Citadel, Ken Griffin’s flagship hedge fund, just bought roughly $16 billion worth of public equities from Leopold Aschenbrenner’s Situational Awareness fund at a discount exceeding 10% to market value. The deal closed late on July 30 and into July 31, involving multiple prime brokers in what amounts to one of the largest forced portfolio liquidations in recent memory. For anyone keeping score at home, Aschenbrenner’s fund peaked at $45 billion in assets under management earlier in July. Weeks later, margin calls turned that number into a cautionary tale. From $100 million to $45 billion to fire sale Leopold Aschenbrenner launched Situational Awareness in 2024 with $100 million in initial capital, betting aggressively on AI technologies and the infrastructure buildout supporting them. The fund’s AUM ballooned to $45 billion by early July 2026. Infrastructure sector bets went sideways, with sharp declines in holdings like SK Hynix dragging the portfolio lower. The fund had also placed short bets on software stocks that moved against it. The margin calls forced a liquidation of the leveraged portion of the portfolio. Client-capital-funded positions reportedly remained intact. Citadel ...