Remember Leopold Aschenbrenner, the "AI Stock God"?
Leopold and his fund Situational Awareness were once the most sought-after new-generation investment legend on Wall Street just a few months ago. However, in late July, due to a sharp pullback in AI-related stocks combined with high leverage, the fund suffered massive losses, was forced to liquidate its public market positions on a large scale, and sold most of its stock portfolio at a discount to Ken Griffin's Citadel.
A spectacular AI investment legend seemed to have come to an end, but to the market's surprise, Leopold, who had survived by breaking his wings, did not fade into obscurity. Just over a month after the crushing defeat, this former "AI Stock God" stormed back into the public markets. And once again, it was the familiar AI stocks — only this time, he seems prepared to play the game differently.
Who Is the "AI Stock God"? (Skip if familiar)
In March of this year, we first introduced Leopold in the article "SBF's Protege: Turning $225 Million into $5.5 Billion in One Year".
Leopold worked at FTX's Future Fund in 2022 and remained with the team until FTX's collapse. In 2024, Leopold wrote a 165-page mega-paper titled "Situational Awareness: The Decade Ahead," and in the same year founded the eponymous fund Situational Awareness, serving as its Chief Investment Officer.
Situational Awareness focuses on investment opportunities across the AI industry chain. The fund's public positions were "only" $225 million in Q4 2024; in the Q4 2025 holdings disclosure published in February of this year, that figure rapidly grew to $5.5 billion; and by the Q1 holdings disclosure in May of this year, that number had risen to $13.7 billion... Although these figures are now meaningless, in the Q2 holdings report disclosed today, the fund's notional holdings value has reached $20.2 billion.
· Odaily note: It is important to note that in the statistical methodology of US stock 13F filings, the market value of options assets is typically shown as the "Notional Value" of the underlying stock, rather than the actual Premium cost paid by the fund for the options.
With explosive investment returns, Leopold and Situational Awareness gained widespread fame and briefly became one of the most closely watched AI investment bellwethers across the internet, and Leopold was even crowned the "AI Stock God" by a market eager to anoint heroes.
Making a Comeback
The earliest rumors of the "AI Stock God" returning began on September 10, when a set of unusually concentrated AI stock options trades made the market once again catch the scent of Leopold.
US stock analyst Paradis disclosed on X that day that since last Friday, a series of highly concentrated massive custom AI-related options (FLEX Options) buy orders had appeared in the market, with total premiums paid of approximately $315 million, corresponding to a Delta exposure of about $1.1 billion and a Vega exposure of about $5.8 million.
· SNDK: January-expiry 2040/2200 call options — $57 million premium, $198 million Delta, $1.04 million Vega.
· BE: January-expiry 250/310 call options — $48 million premium, $140 million Delta, $565,000 Vega.
· INTC: January-expiry 105/115 call options — $48 million premium, $185 million Delta, $870,000 Vega.
· CRWV: January-expiry 105/115 call options — $43 million premium, $160 million Delta, $770,000 Vega.
· DRAM: January-expiry 65/70 call options — $43 million premium, $173 million Delta, $855,000 Vega.
· SKHY: January-expiry 190/210 call options — $39 million premium, $148 million Delta, $710,000 Vega.
· AMD: January-expiry 540/580 call options — $36 million premium, $193 million Delta, $1.08 million Vega.
Paradis did not confirm at the time that this was Leopold operating, but suspected from the position structure (the specific tickers overlapped heavily with Situational Awareness's previously disclosed public-market holdings) that Leopold had returned to the market, and emphasized that trading desks at Nomura (NMR) and Goldman Sachs (GS) both believed there was a "single mysterious buyer" behind these options trades.
CNBC subsequently confirmed, citing people familiar with the matter, that Leopold really is back!
Sources told CNBC that Situational Awareness has indeed become active again in the options market, recently re-buying options tied to AMD (AMD), Bloom Energy (BE), CoreWeave (CREV), SK Hynix (SKHY), SanDisk (SNDK), and the DRAM ETF (DRAM), with trades executed late last week and early this week.
Clearly, Leopold has not fundamentally changed his AI investment thesis because of July's disastrous losses. On the contrary, based on the positions that have surfaced so far, he is still betting on the same main theme — AI compute and infrastructure.
This is also the most noteworthy aspect of Leopold's return. The July debacle does not simply prove that Leopold's judgment on AI was wrong. What was truly fatal was the simultaneous combination of directional conviction, position concentration, and leverage — and Leopold, now back in the game, clearly recognizes this.
The Core Change: Leverage!
Judging only from the positions that have surfaced so far, Leopold's investment direction has barely changed, but compared with his playbook before July, he has clearly reined things in considerably this time.
According to a Financial Times report on September 11, Situational Awareness is rebuilding its public-market portfolio and has begun working with a new broker, Clear Street. Leopold has told the broker that the fund will use significantly less leverage than before.
This may be the most direct lesson from that disastrous July. Previously, Situational Awareness had simultaneously bet on high positions and high leverage in AI stocks. Once the market moved against it, losses quickly spread to the financing side, ultimately forcing it to unwind positions at the worst possible time.
And this time, he clearly does not dare to do that again. In a previous letter to investors after the disastrous July, Leopold already said that future public market investments would increasingly use a "fully paid-for" approach, meaning using his own funds to hold stocks, or buying options whose premiums have already been fully paid, in order to reduce financing and forced liquidation risks.
This also explains why FLEX Calls occupy a fairly important position in this latest rebuilding of positions. The cost of buying call options is the premium. Even if the underlying ultimately moves in the completely opposite direction, the loss is usually locked within that premium. For Leopold, this approach can still provide relatively large upside exposure, but unlike his previous leveraged positions, he will not be forced to liquidate because of margin pressure.
Of course, there is actually another more realistic, even somewhat awkward reason here — this time, the low leverage is not entirely the result of Leopold's own active choice.
On September 11, Reuters reported, citing people familiar with the matter, that JPMorgan had ended its lending relationship with Situational Awareness, while JPMorgan had previously been one of Situational Awareness's main lenders... So Leopold's reduction in leverage this time includes both an element of actively shrinking risk and the practical factor of a changed financing environment.
The Second Act of the "AI Stock God"
From $225 million to more than $20 billion in the spotlight, to the sudden collapse in July, and now to storming back into the market again, Leopold's experience is already difficult to sum up simply with the four words "AI Stock God." But at least for now, the disastrous July defeat did not make him give up his judgment on the AI industry chain. Instead, it made him begin to re-examine positions and leverage.
Of course, reducing leverage does not mean risk has disappeared. AMD, Intel, SanDisk, CoreWeave, SK Hynix... these are still extremely volatile AI trades, and what Leopold is betting on this time is still a crowded and expensive track.
Last time, he lost because he didn't wait for the day the market validated his judgment; this time, whether he can live to see that day may be the real highlight of the second act of the "AI Stock God."
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