๐จ LEOPOLD ASCHENBRENNER IS OFFICIALLY BETTING BILLIONS THAT THE AI HARDWARE BOOM HAS PEAKED.
The exOpenAI researcher who was fired for warning that China could steal their AI models then turned $225 million into $5.5 billion in 12 months just filed his Q1 2026 13F with the SEC.
One quarter ago he had $5.5 billion in disclosed equity exposure. As of March 31, 2026 that number is $13.67 billion. The portfolio nearly tripled in a single quarter across 42 positions.
He initiated $7.46 billion in put options against every major semiconductor company between January 1 and March 31, 2026.
None of these positions existed in his Q4 2025 filing.
- SMH VanEck Semiconductor ETF PUT: $2.04 billion
- Nvidia PUT: $1.57 billion
- Oracle PUT: $1.07 billion
- Broadcom PUT: $1.01 billion
- AMD PUT: $969 million
- Micron PUT: $583 million
- Taiwan Semiconductor PUT: $535 million
- ASML PUT: $494 million
- Intel PUT: $159 million
For the past 18 months Aschenbrenner was betting only on electricity, memory, compute, and physical data center infrastructure. That made him one of the best performing fund managers in the world. And his long stock book still reflects that exact same thesis.
- Bloom Energy: $878 million
- SanDisk: $724 million
- CoreWeave: $556 million
- IREN: $401 million
- Core Scientific: $389 million
- Applied Digital: $320 million
- Riot Platforms: $142 million
- CleanSpark: $104 million
- Solaris Energy: $62 million
- T1 Energy: $43 million
- Bitfarms: $38 million
- Bitdeer: $29 million
- Power Solutions: $26 million
- WhiteFiber: $20 million
- Babcock and Wilcox: $19 million
- SharonAI: $18 million
- ProPetro: $13 million
- Hive Digital: $6 million
He is also running call options on specific names at the same time as his puts, which means he is not simply betting against semiconductors everywhere.
- Micron CALL: $422 million
- SanDisk CALL: $388 million
- Taiwan Semiconductor CALL: $354 million
- CoreWeave CALL: $140 million
- Bloom Energy CALL: $55 million
This means he believes the companies supplying power, storage, and compute to the AI industry still have years of growth ahead of them.
But the chip companies that Wall Street has been buying for the past two years at record valuations have already priced in everything good that is going to happen to them.
The man who has been right about every major AI trade for the past 18 months is now betting that the biggest names in semiconductors are about to fall.
If his track record means anything, the chip stocks Wall Street has been buying for the past two years may be in serious trouble.