Situational Awareness’ 439% Return Should Have Been a Warning

Former OpenAI employee Leopold Aschenbrenner sent a letter to investors in his artificial intelligence-focused hedge fund, Situational Awareness, on July 24. He reported a 439% net return for the first half of the year, adding a postscript: This seemed like a good time to add funds. Six days later, Ken Griffin’s Citadel bought a chunk of the fund’s stock holdings — a stake once estimated at $16 billion — in one of the largest rushed equity transactions in Wall Street history.