Nostradamus of AI promised to buy wife a galaxy then his $45B hedge fund blew up
AI savants are known for their bold predictions.Leopold Aschenbrenner, the so-called “Nostradamus of AI,” took things to another level, reportedly promising his future wife he would someday buy her not a yacht or a mansion, but a galaxy.The 24-year-old German-born wunderkind married the chief of staff to Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei earlier this month.Just days earlier, his massively leveraged hedge fund imploded — plunging 67% through July 30 and forcing him to unload most of its public-stock portfolio to Ken Griffin’s Citadel.Aschenbrenner signed the paperwork for the emergency sale early Thursday morning before heading to Carmel, Calif., for his wedding that weekend, according to the Wall Street Journal.One speaker reportedly thanked Griffin “for making it all possible,” while another guest gushed about Aschenbrenner’s promise to someday buy his new wife a galaxy.Buying a chunk of universe had been on Aschenbrenner’s mind for years, according to the article, with the investor repeatedly mentioning the idea to incredulous friends.Aschenbrenner did a stint for Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX Future Fund and stayed with his now-wife, Avital Balwit, at the 600-acre Bahamas resort where FTX executives lived.Aschenbrenner and Bankman-Fried were members of 17 Signal group chats together — including “EA [effective altruism] Discussion” and “Anthropic Chat” — while the Future Fund team met with SBF and members of his inner circle in a sixth-floor penthouse, according to documents from Bankman-Fried’s criminal trial cited by the Journal.Aschenbrenner resigned from the Future Fund with his colleagues when FTX collapsed into bankruptcy in November 2022.He has said he and Bankman-Fried had already fallen out over disagreements involving biosecurity grants.Less than two years later, Aschenbrenner launched Situational Awareness, eventually building it into a $45 billion hedge fund before its heavily leveraged bets on AI spectacularly unraveled over the sum...