Updated

Updated · Yahoo Finance · Aug 21

Hedge Fund Liquidation Erases $35 Billion, Pressuring Sandisk and Micron After July Rout

Updated

Updated · Yahoo Finance · Aug 21

Hedge Fund Liquidation Erases $35 Billion, Pressuring Sandisk and Micron After July Rout

Q: Which specific AI stocks did Citadel secretly hold onto after dumping 80% of Leopold Aschenbrenner's liquidated $4 billion portfolio?

There is no verified public disclosure of which specific AI stocks Citadel kept after shedding more than 80% of the risk. Ken Griffin’s letter said only that Citadel had “unwound more than 80% of the aggregate risk” of the portfolio through more than 100 block trades worth over $4 billion. That describes risk reduction, not the names that remained. Neither the letter nor the reporting identifies the residual positions. What is publicly known is the mix of stocks that had been in Leopold Aschenbrenner’s Situational Awareness book before the forced sale. Reports and filings tied the fund to AI and semiconductor names including SK hynix, CoreWeave, Sandisk, Bloom Energy, Micron, Nebius, Broadcom and Intel, along with shorts against software companies such as Adobe. Reuters and CNBC also cited hard-hit holdings such as SK hynix and CoreWeave, while other reports mentioned SanDisk, Micron and Nebius. But no credible source in the material provided shows which of those Citadel “secretly held onto.” The remaining 20% of risk could have reflected partial positions, hedges, derivatives, or illiquid exposures rather than a simple basket of named stocks. Without a regulatory filing, client letter naming positions, or on-record reporting, any claim about the exact AI stocks Citadel retained would be speculation.

3 articles · Updated · Yahoo Finance · Aug 21

$35 billion in losses forced a hedge fund into distressed liquidation after Sandisk and Micron shares plunged in July, sharply shrinking the fund.
More than 56% of the portfolio had been concentrated in Sandisk and Micron, turning the selloff into a forced unwind and exposing weak risk controls around leveraged AI-infrastructure bets.
Sandisk now loses a major institutional holder, removing a concentrated source of demand and leaving the stock more exposed to broader institutional and retail sentiment.
Investors are watching Sandisk's next earnings update for NAND volumes, pricing and traction for its 9th-generation 2Tb QLC and High Bandwidth Flash products.
The collapse adds to pressure across memory and AI-linked chip trades after Citadel separately unwound much of Leopold Aschenbrenner's failed Situational Awareness fund.