How Leopold Aschenbrenner built a $45 billion AI hedge fund — and lost most of it in days

Leopold Aschenbrenner, a 24-year-old former OpenAI researcher, built an AI-focused hedge fund called Situational Awareness that peaked at $45 billion in assets but collapsed to around $10 billion within days after being forced to sell leveraged stock positions (bets financed with borrowed money) at a discount. The fund's dramatic failure was driven by falling semiconductor stock prices and margin calls (demands from lenders to pay back borrowed money), highlighting the risks of using excessive leverage in volatile markets despite Aschenbrenner's influential predictions about artificial intelligence's future.