This 24-Year-Old Hedge Fund Prodigy Was Called the ‘Nostradamus of AI’— He Didn’t See a 73% Drop Coming.

Leopold Aschenbrennerm raised $100 million to launch the fund in 2024. This week he sold $20 billion in stock to survive. By Jonathan Small | edited by Dan Bova | Aug 03, 2026 Leopold Aschenbrenner was once dubbed the “Nostradamus of AI” for a viral essay predicting a wave of transformative artificial intelligence. But his hedge fund didn’t see its own meltdown coming. The 24-year-old former OpenAI researcher launched Situational Awareness in 2024 with $100 million from prominent tech investors, the New York Times reported. Turns out the company wasn’t as situationally aware of AI investment volatility. It poured money into AI-adjacent startups and data center companies, at one point quadrupling investor money and growing to roughly $30 billion. Then AI stocks dropped sharply. Goldman Sachs, one of the fund’s largest lenders, demanded repayment on its loans. Over the next 30 hours, Situational Awareness scrambled to sell roughly $20 billion in stock. Rival hedge fund Citadel agreed to buy much of it at a discount, in an early morning call between Aschenbrenner and founder Kenneth Griffin. The fund survived, but with roughly $8 billion left, down from $30 billion at the start of July, a drop of more than 70 percent. Leopold Aschenbrenner was once dubbed the “Nostradamus of AI” for a viral essay predicting a wave of transformative artificial intelligence. But his hedge fund didn’t see its own meltdown coming. The 24-year-old former OpenAI researcher launched Situational Awareness in 2024 with $100 million from prominent tech investors, the New York Times reported. Turns out the company wasn’t as situationally aware of AI investment volatility. It poured money into AI-adjacent startups and data center companies, at one point quadrupling investor money and growing to roughly $30 billion. Then AI stocks dropped sharply. Goldman Sachs, one of the fund’s largest lenders, demanded repayment on its loans. Over the next 30 hours, Situational Awareness scrambled to sell roughly $20 billion in stock. Rival hedge fund Citadel agreed to buy much of it at a discount, in an early morning call between Aschenbrenner and founder Kenneth Griffin. The fund survived, but with roughly $8 billion left, down from $30 billion at the start of July, a drop of more than 70 percent. Jonathan Small is a bestselling author, journalist, producer, and podcast host. For 25 years, he... Read more