Goldman Collected $200M+ in Fees From AI Hedge Fund

Goldman Sachs collected over $200 million in prime-brokerage fees this year from Situational Awareness, making the two-year-old AI-focused hedge fund the bank’s largest prime brokerage client among hedge funds.

The fund was founded in 2024 by Leopold Aschenbrenner, a former OpenAI researcher with no prior trading experience. It posted initial returns above 400% and grew from several hundred million dollars at launch to more than $20 billion in assets.

Situational Awareness used borrowed money from banks to amplify trading positions. A sharp selloff in stocks linked to artificial intelligence produced heavy losses and magnified losses where leverage was used. The fund sold most of its public-market holdings, previously estimated at about $16 billion, to Citadel.

Goldman was among the fund’s principal lenders. JPMorgan Chase also provided financing but later stopped extending credit after the losses.

In July, Aschenbrenner informed investors that the fund would stop using borrowed money to increase position sizes. That change is expected to reduce the scale of future financing fees for banks. Goldman remains a client, and Aschenbrenner has opened a trading relationship with Clear Street, a technology-focused brokerage.

Goldman Sachs and Situational Awareness declined to comment. After selling its public-market portfolio, Aschenbrenner indicated he intended to continue investing and to apply lessons from the losses; the fund has begun building new positions in technology stocks.