Exclusive | Situational Awareness prime brokers poised to keep backingLeopold Aschenbrenner in wake of selloff: sources

Reports of the demise of the “Nostradamus of AI,” a.k.a.Leopold Aschenbrenner, may well be exaggerated, On The Money has learned.Just ask his prime brokers.That’s the word from the Wall Street banks that perform this vital function for hedge funds – part of the same smart-money crowd caught off guard last week by Aschenbrenner’s tremendous one-month implosion when his leverage-fueled binge on artificial intelligence shares went south.It was the whipsaw for the ages: Aschenbrenner’s fund, Situational Awareness, seemed to crater overnight: after recording a 1,000% return since its inception in 2024, it fell a whopping 67% in just a month and needed to unload billions of its holdings to stay afloat.But as of this week, Achenbrenner’s baby isn’t dead despite its well publicized days-long flame-out in which nearly all its public holdings went to Citadel in a fireside sale.

Yes, the fund is down to $10 billion in assets from its high of $45 billion, but even with his massive puke, he’s still up around 80% for the year.And, remember, $10 billion is still a decent chunk of money, keeping him among the top 50 hedge funds in the country, Wall Streeters tell me.It’s why Achenbrenner’s prime brokers – the Wall Street firms that are essential for hedge funds to operate because they handle so-called back-office needs – are still keen to stand behind him, sources tell On The Money.My sources note, for example, Aschenbrenner still has his $5 billion private stake in Dario Amodei’s AI developer, Anthropic that has been preparing to go public, and his fund has lock-ups that make it difficult for big investors like Jane Street to simply pull all their cash.For that reason some of the world’s most prestigious banks – JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and Citigroup – haven’t yet cut off prime broker ties with the humbled Nostradamus of AI, I am told.At Morgan Stanley, meanwhile, the prime brokerage folks had planned to onboard Situational Aw...