When an AI-long fund hits a liquidity-clearing trade: $25B to near-zero

The Sound of Inevitability

Kris Abdelmessih uses a pit-trading 'liquidity-clearing trade' to explain how Leopold Aschenbrenner's fund SALP went from a $25B peak to forced liquidation within a month. SALP was heavily long AI hardware names like CoreWeave, Nebius, and SK Hynix while shorting traditional software. The directional call was right, but the position was too concentrated and leveraged. On July 24 it was still raising fresh capital; a week later it sold its public book to Citadel. The post doesn't disclose the exact leverage ratio or final remaining assets.

Why it matters: SALP's collapse is a landmark event in AI investing, and the piece breaks down the mechanics with concrete positions and numbers. Docked slightly because it's a third-party post-mortem, not a scoop, and Panoptica isn't a top-tier financial outlet — so it lands at the 72 featur...