Leopold Aschenbrenner's Situational Awareness is active in options market, sources say

Leopold Aschenbrenner's hedge fund, Situational Awareness, has resumed active trading in public financial markets by acquiring options positions in several artificial intelligence and technology stocks, notably Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Bloom Energy, Coreweave, SK Hynix, and SanDisk. The transactions were initiated late last week and extended into early this week, according to sources familiar with the situation. The firm's re-emergence in the public markets follows a severe drawdown over the summer that saw its assets collapse from a peak above $45 billion in early July down to approximately $10 billion. The precipitous decline was driven by a sharp pullback in leveraged AI-related equities, which forced Aschenbrenner to liquidate public stock holdings to Citadel in a fire sale to avert a total collapse, while retaining stakes in private startups like Anthropic. It remains unconfirmed whether this renewed options strategy is backed by fresh capital inflows or remaining fund reserves. Nonetheless, the development signals returning risk appetite among prominent AI investors following recent market turbulence.