Additional Coverage:
- The power couple of AI is getting married in Carmel, days after groom Leopold Aschenbrenner’s hedge fund nearly blew up (fortune.com)
Leopold Aschenbrenner is set to marry Avital Balwit this weekend in Carmel, California. Balwit serves as chief of staff to Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei.
Their engagement was first announced last October, and according to reports from the Wall Street Journal, the celebration promises to be an extravagant affair tailored for this AI power couple. The weekend’s events include a series of panels and discussions, a ceremony at a Tuscan-style villa, and a honeymoon send-off at a forest spa retreat.
However, the groom has faced significant challenges in the days leading up to the wedding. Aschenbrenner, in his twenties, earned the nickname “Nostradamus” of AI investing after his hedge fund, Situational Awareness, grew to $45 billion by concentrating heavily on memory chip and data center stocks such as CoreWeave and SK Hynix. The Journal reveals that his positions were leveraged three to four times, meaning he borrowed multiple dollars for every dollar of capital.
For two years, this strategy paid off. But just as the wedding approached, a sudden market downturn hit.
Investor skepticism over AI infrastructure spending without clear returns caused memory and major tech stocks-including SK Hynix and SanDisk-to plummet by about 30%. The semiconductor industry experienced its worst month since 2002.
Rival traders identified Aschenbrenner’s holdings and shorted them, anticipating forced selling. As banks demanded increased collateral, he began liquidating assets, further driving prices down.
In a letter to investors shared by Reuters, he likened the situation to a bank run, describing it as “vulnerability begetting more vulnerability.”
By midweek, Aschenbrenner was scrambling to sell assets. Bloomberg reported he approached firms like Sequoia and Greenoaks to offload private stakes, including a substantial portion of his Anthropic investment. When that deal fell through, the Collison brothers-founders of Stripe and early backers of his fund-spent long hours at his office as he negotiated with major players Citadel and Millennium late into the night.
Ultimately, Citadel’s Ken Griffin purchased most of Aschenbrenner’s public portfolio at more than a 10% discount before markets opened Thursday. The funds raised were used to repay lenders, allowing Situational Awareness to survive with $10 billion in assets, maintaining its stake in Anthropic.
As guests began arriving in Carmel, Aschenbrenner sent another letter to investors, confirming the fund had eliminated its shorts and leverage. Despite a 67% drop for the month, it remained up 80% for the year.
He assured investors that the fund had not been liquidated and would continue operating, offering personal calls in the coming week-even as he embarks on his honeymoon. He took full responsibility for the recent events.
Aschenbrenner’s wedding is a convergence of close-knit relationships in the tech and AI world. He met Balwit at the FTX Future Fund, and his fund received early support from prominent figures like the Collison brothers, Nat Friedman, and Daniel Gross. He previously shared office space with podcaster Dwarkesh Patel and organized gatherings for researchers from OpenAI and Anthropic.
The intimate circle was noted by Balwit herself, who joked on social media that although she requested a “European Garden” theme for their wedding, it felt “on the cusp of the singularity.” She added that their wedding planners, while nodding thoughtfully, seemed to think the couple had “lost it.”
Neither Situational Awareness nor Anthropic responded to requests for comment. Meanwhile, the couple prepares to celebrate both their union and the resilience of their ventures in the evolving world of AI.