A Dire Situation

Leopold Aschenbrenner was called the “Nostradamus of AI.” He didn’t foresee the sudden swoon that damaged his hedge fund this month.

The 24-year-old essayist and stockpicker amassed a $45 billion portfolio, and a cult following on the internet, thanks to his prescient predictions of where AI was headed and which companies were going to benefit. As of the end of May, his San Francisco-based fund, Situational Awareness, was up more than 1,000% after fees since it started in 2024.

His fortunes changed this week. Stocks his firm bought with borrowed money sustained heavy losses in a broader AI selloff, forcing him to cut positions and raise cash to repay its lenders.

Aschenbrenner scrambled for lifelines while preparing for his unfortunately timed wedding in a seaside town in Northern California. He struck a deal on Wednesday to sell a $3.5 billion stake his firm held in Anthropic to a group of venture capitalists then backtracked, opting instead to accept an offer from Ken Griffin’s Citadel to purchase the bulk of its book of stocks.

Late on Thursday, he took responsibility for the firm’s troubles in a letter to his investors, writing, “We let you down this month.” The letter said Situational Awareness was down a staggering 67% so far in July. But its earlier gains were so sizable that it was still up 80% in 2026.

—Peter is a New York-based reporter covering hedge funds and investing

Artificial intelligence is pumping a lot of stuff into our feeds. Some is harmless fun. Some is engineered to rile us up. Some is straight-up scammy. Most of it looks impressively lifelike on a smartphone screen. And now we suffer the mental tax of constantly having to ask, “Is this real or AI?”

This column kicks off a three-part podcast series featuring Nicole. You can listen to the first episode here:

Meta is facing one of the most serious legal threats of its 22-year history—and it couldn’t come at a worse time for the company as it navigates a tricky and costly transition to the artificial-intelligence era.

Starting in April, AI models from OpenAI and Anthropic left their test-beds and broke into unsuspecting corporations in unprecedented cyberattacks. The twin disclosures caused consternation among lawmakers. They also marked an eye-opening moment for some employees of the labs responsible.

The AI pioneer faces growing distrust from startup founders and researchers over competitive tactics, guardrails and lack of support for open-weight models.

Math & Money: There’s never been a better time to be a math nerd. Flush with cash, Wall Street and Silicon Valley are vying to hire the same genius graduates.

Breakout Bots: Anthropic AI models hacked three companies during tests, following a similar incident involving rival OpenAI and startup Hugging Face.

Car Talk: Some drivers now consult AI to gut-check quotes, diagnose problems—and even guide them through basic repairs. Mechanics have mixed opinions.

Un-Meta-Gated Optimism: Mark Zuckerberg thinks AI is working out great for humanity and says the U.S. should accelerate development, not restrict it.

Chipping In: Nvidia is investing in former OpenAI Chief Scientist Ilya Sutskever’s secretive AI lab, part of a long-term partnership that could boost the startup’s access to computing power while helping the chip giant fend off a rival.

…when singles are so burned out they need spreadsheets to evaluate their dates.

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