Ken Griffin’s rescue of Situational Awareness sparks AI stock rally

A 24-year-old former OpenAI researcher built one of the hottest hedge funds on the planet. Then leverage did what leverage always does. On July 30, Citadel acquired roughly $16 billion worth of Situational Awareness’s public equity portfolio, a deal completed at a substantial discount after a brief bidding process. The move immediately calmed nerves across the AI sector, triggering a relief rally in AI stocks that had been battered during a brutal selloff in recent weeks. Here’s the thing: Situational Awareness wasn’t some obscure fund quietly imploding in a corner. At its peak, the fund managed close to $45 billion in assets, powered by returns that read like a typo. The fund reported gains of 439% in the first half of 2026 alone, with cumulative returns exceeding 1,000% since its 2024 launch. How a rocket ship ran out of fuel Leopold Aschenbrenner founded Situational Awareness in 2024 after leaving OpenAI, channeling his conviction about AI’s trajectory into a concentrated, leveraged bet on the sector’s biggest names. The strategy worked spectacularly during the AI boom, with the fund rapidly scaling its portfolio through what sources describe as approximately 4x leverage on its ...