a peak of $45 billion earlier this month to roughly $10 billion by Thursday after forced liquidation of leveraged equity positions to Citadel at a discount. The fund, named after Aschenbrenner's 165-page June 2024 manifesto that circulated widely in Silicon Valley, had returned more than 1,000 percent since its July 2024 inception before the reversal, according to a Wall Street Journal report last month. Aschenbrenner, 24, launched the vehicle with no prior money-management experience after a stint at FTX assisting Sam Bankman-Fried with a Bahamas-based charitable operation.
By Thursday, the fund had offloaded all leveraged public-equity bets, including positions in SK Hynix and CoreWeave, to Ken Griffin's Citadel, people with knowledge of the situation said. Sources said the fund had employed as much as 400 percent leverage, and that roughly two-thirds of its portfolio had been in long and short public equities before the sale. The remainder consisted largely of private-company stakes, dominated by a multibillion-dollar investment in Anthropic.
Critics had long flagged the structure as fragile. "A lot of people saw this blow-up as a matter of not if, but when," said Jerry Diao, who runs a Wall Street coaching firm. "Maybe his views on AI are correct in the long run, but in the public markets, you have to be prepared for the short-term." Former traders at global investment banks echoed that the leverage level made a sharp drawdown probable rather than possible.
The liquidation coincides with Aschenbrenner's wedding this weekend to Avital Balwit, chief of staff to Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei, according to a Fortune profile and people familiar with the plans. A Columbia University classmate, salutatorian Sofia Montrone, described Aschenbrenner as "child-like" and socially awkward in a Zoom conversation before their 2021 graduation. The fund did not respond to a request for comment.