On Friday, about $96 million worth of short-term call options poured into four AI chip stocks—SanDisk, Micron, Intel, and Marvell. During the session, SanDisk's share price surged as much as 11%.
Watching this wave of "massive‑volume" short-term options trading, CNBC host Jim Cramer posted on the social platform X, exclaiming: "At this rate, it's as if Leopold has come roaring back!"
If you've been keeping an eye on investment opportunities in the global AI computing power and large‑model sectors, you're surely no stranger to Leopold Aschenbrenner.
This former core researcher at OpenAI and the founder of Situational Awareness, an AI‑focused hedge fund that once carried a halo of prestige, gained notoriety for employing extreme leverage to frantically buy short‑term call options on semiconductor and AI companies. In 2024, the fund he launched started with roughly $225 million and, fueled by highly leveraged bets on AI, grew to about $45 billion.
In July this year, the fund suffered a "massive liquidation," plunging 67% during the AI sector's pullback that month and selling off most of its holdings to Citadel. The Financial Times of the United Kingdom labeled it the largest single‑day loss in hedge‑fund history. Nevertheless, the fund still posted roughly 80% positive returns for the year.
In late July, Aschenbrenner stated in a letter to investors that he would "seek another day to fight" and "draw the necessary lessons," while pledging that public‑market investments would be managed "on a fully paid‑up basis."
Last week, CNBC reported that the fund has already…$Advanced Micro Devices (AMD.US)$ 、 $Bloom Energy (BE.US)$and$CoreWeave (CRWV.US)$Wait for the underlying asset to rebound before buying options again. This time, the focus has shifted to storage and semiconductors—the two largest sectors in which the fund held heavy positions prior to the market crash.
Composition of Nearly $100 Million in Call Options
According to intraday trading data compiled by ZeroHedge, the details of this batch of call options expiring on October 2 are as follows:
$Micron Technology (MU.US)$: Strike price of 1,000, approximately 10,000 contracts, with a premium of roughly 44 million.
$SanDisk (SNDK.US)$Strike price: 1,600; approximately 4,200 contracts; premium: about 41 million.
$Intel (INTC.US)$: Strike price 115, approximately 20,000 contracts, premium approximately 7.3 million.
$Marvell Technology (MRVL.US)$: Strike price 250, approximately 3,500 contracts, premium approximately 3.85 million.
At the time, SanDisk was trading near its strike price, already above it; Micron was around $990, with a strike price that was almost at parity; Intel's strike prices were slightly above the current market price. The weekly highs for Micron and SanDisk were $1,255 and $2,354, respectively, and their current prices are still quite a distance from those peaks.
For contracts expiring in two weeks, both time decay and gamma sensitivity are extremely high, leaving virtually no room for error in directional judgment.
Cramer noted that the October expiration date falls after Micron's fourth-quarter earnings report—a report that has historically influenced the entire memory sector. Back in August, he expressed an optimistic outlook on the sector, arguing that AI‑driven data‑center demand and disciplined supply are reshaping the memory industry's traditional boom‑bust cycle.
Why the market is pointing to the "AI stock guru"
The SEC filing has not yet disclosed the buyer's identity, but market speculation about Aschenbrenner is well-founded.
The most direct clue lies in the underlying assets. According to Situational Awareness's regulatory filings at the end of June, SanDisk and Micron accounted for its two largest positions, with holdings valued at approximately $5.7 billion and $5.6 billion, respectively. Notably, the option premiums—totaling nearly $100 million—were concentrated precisely on these same two stocks.
The trading strategy also aligns with this approach. Previously, the fund was renowned for placing extremely high‑leverage short‑term bets on AI momentum, with leverage ratios at times reaching as high as 400%. Short‑dated, large‑size call options were its signature instrument—by aggressively buying to trigger gamma‑hedged buy orders from market makers, it drove sharp short‑term spikes in stock prices.
The timeline also aligns. According to a September 11 report by the Financial Times, Aschenbrenner has rebuilt positions in AMD, Intel, SK Hynix, SanDisk, and CoreWeave through Flex Options.
Nomura Securities strategist Charlie McElligott at the time flagged a telling signal: over several days, a total of $315 million in option premiums flowed into AI and semiconductor stocks, corresponding to $1.1 billion in Delta‑weighted exposure. He also noted that the call‑option skew for semiconductor ETFs had surged to record highs over the next three months.
The tool has been changed, but the logic remains unchanged.
Unlike in July, when he used total return swaps (TRS) provided by major banks such as Goldman Sachs to obtain leverage, Aschenbrenner is now believed to have switched to fully-paid options—where the maximum loss is limited to the premium already paid, and theoretically there is no risk of margin calls or liquidation.
This shift has practical reasons. Following the collapse, JPMorgan terminated its lending relationship with the fund, the SEC has requested information from the banks that financed it, and the brokerage firms that previously collaborated have also come under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice. According to the Financial Times, Aschenbrenner turned to Clear Street, a brokerage firm specializing in the technology sector, to re-establish cooperation.
However, the underlying strategic logic has not fundamentally changed. McElligott notes that this wave of trading exhibits a synchronized pattern—spot prices rise while volatility also surges—highly reminiscent of the market dynamics preceding the July collapse. Traders continue to amass large, concentrated positions in illiquid momentum‑driven assets, aiming to trigger a cascade of price increases. Once the momentum reverses, all option premiums evaporate, and there is no way to mitigate the impact by adjusting leverage.
The fund's 13F filing for the third quarter will be submitted in mid-November, at which point the true buyers of this batch of trades can be confirmed from the regulatory filings.
Editor/joryn