Situational Awareness Sells Most Public AI Holdings but Retains $5 Billion Anthropic Stake

Situational Awareness sold most of its public-stock portfolio to Citadel after steep losses, despite founder Leopold Aschenbrenner describing the decline as a buying opportunity in a July 24 investor letter. Bloomberg reported that the fund’s assets subsequently fell to roughly $10 billion, from about $20 billion in recent months.

Leverage turned a sector decline into a liquidity problem

The fund concentrated on the infrastructure required to scale AI: semiconductors, memory, compute capacity and energy. That thesis initially delivered a 439% return for the year through June, while assets under management reportedly reached as much as $45 billion at their peak.

The reversal came as public investors questioned whether massive AI capital expenditure would generate near-term revenue. Leverage amplified the losses and reduced the fund’s ability to wait for a recovery, illustrating how financing structure can overwhelm a long-term investment thesis.

Public positions were sold, private holdings remained

SK Hynix, SanDisk, Bloom Energy and Nebius Group were among the hardest-hit holdings, each losing more than 30% over the past month. Bloomberg said Aschenbrenner’s appeal for fresh commitments from August 1 failed to attract the capital he expected.

“One of the best buying opportunities since early last year.”

Citadel acquired the bulk of the public portfolio. Ken Griffin’s fund already held several similar AI infrastructure positions and has a record of buying assets when leveraged investors are forced to unwind.

Situational Awareness retained its private investments, led by an Anthropic stake currently valued at $5 billion. Anthropic received a $965 billion valuation in a May Series H round and could pursue an IPO as soon as October. The retained position also links the fund’s outcome to Anthropic’s $65 billion raise and near-$1 trillion valuation, because a successful listing could offset part of its public-market losses.

Other private holdings include chipmaker MatX and data-center startup Fluidstack, which was reportedly discussing a funding round at an $18 billion valuation in April.

What businesses should take from the sale

For business leaders, the lesson is not that AI infrastructure demand has disappeared. It is that conviction, liquidity and financing horizons must align. A sound strategic thesis can still fail operationally when leverage forces an exit before revenue and market pricing catch up.