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Margin Call Forces $45B Fund Sale to Citadel

8/9/2026

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Story summary
  • A margin call forced Situational Awareness to sell holdings after the SMH ETF fell 25% from its year-to-date peak.
  • Leopold Aschenbrenner raised $225 million, grew the fund to $45 billion by June 2025, and leveraged 400%.
  • Situational Awareness sold public stocks to Citadel, which profited from the transaction.
  • The fund remained up 80% for the year because of private Anthropic shares.
  • Analysts called the performance ‘levered beta’ rather than true alpha.