Goldman Sachs Earned More Than $200 Million in Fees from the "AI Nostradamus" Hedge Fund

Leopold Aschenbrenner’s “AI Nostradamus” hedge fund, Situational Awareness, became the largest client of Goldman Sachs’ prime brokerage business in 2026. According to Financial Times sources, the bank earned more than $200 million in commissions on the fund’s trades.

The total in commissions—more than $200 million—was higher than that of any other Goldman client in the prime brokerage division, which provides financing to hedge funds, sources told the FT. Situational Awareness was also one of the bank’s largest clients in its trading division overall, the newspaper reported. This figure is attributed to both the rapid growth of Aschenbrenner’s fund and the types of trades he arranged, the newspaper explained.

According to the FT, it is virtually unprecedented on Wall Street for a fund like Situational Awareness—which is barely two years old—to have become such a major client of an investment bank of Goldman’s caliber so quickly, alongside leading hedge funds such as Citadel and Millennium.

Aschenbrenner launched Situational Awareness in 2024 with assets totaling several hundred million dollars. At its peak, the fund delivered a 400% return and grew to more than $20 billion. Goldman was one of Situational Awareness’s main lenders, and the fund remains a client of the bank, according to the FT. JPMorgan also financed the fund but stopped lending after it suffered losses, the FT added.

Goldman and Situational Awareness declined to comment to the Financial Times.

Aschenbrenner earned the nickname “AI Nostradamus” after publishing a 165-page research manifesto titled *Situational Awareness* in 2024, which also gave his hedge fund its name. In his research, the former OpenAI researcher predicted rapid growth in computing power and the development of artificial intelligence. In his view, by the end of the decade, artificial “superintelligence” will be smarter than humans.

A sharp sell-off of AI company stocks, dubbed the “Soft Apocalypse,” led to significant losses for Aschenbrenner’s fund in July. The losses were exacerbated by the leverage the fund had taken on from investment banks to increase its positions. As a result, Aschenbrenner sold most of his public holdings—which were valued at approximately $16 billion at their peak—to Ken Griffin’s hedge fund Citadel.

In July, Aschenbrenner told investors that the fund would no longer borrow money to increase its positions. Therefore, Goldman’s future fees from Situational Awareness are likely to be significantly lower than before, the Financial Times concludes.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor