Ex-OpenAI Insider Is Shorting Nvidia and Buying Bitcoin Miners — Here’s Why

TLDR

• Ex-OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner grew his fund’s equity exposure from $5.5B to $13.67B in Q1 2026
• Largest long positions are in Bitcoin miners including IREN, Core Scientific, Riot Platforms, CleanSpark, and others
• His thesis: AI growth will be bottlenecked by power and land, not chips
• He simultaneously opened $7.46B in put options against Nvidia, Broadcom, Oracle, and the VanEck Semiconductor ETF
• Bitcoin miners already hold the energy contracts and land that AI companies urgently need

Leopold Aschenbrenner left OpenAI in 2024 following an alleged information leak. Since then, he has built a fund called Situational Awareness and placed a major bet on AI infrastructure — specifically, the companies that own the land and power that AI needs to grow.

His Q1 2026 13F filing, accepted by the SEC on May 18, shows his fund’s disclosed equity exposure more than doubled. It rose from $5.52 billion at the end of 2025 to $13.67 billion as of March 31, 2026.

Why Bitcoin Miners?

Aschenbrenner’s core argument is simple. AI data centers need massive amounts of electricity and physical space. Bitcoin miners already have both. They have secured energy contracts, built large-scale facilities, and connected to power grids. These are assets that AI companies cannot replicate quickly.

His largest long positions are in Bitcoin miners: IREN, Core Scientific, Riot Platforms, CleanSpark, Bitfarms, Bitdeer, and Hive Digital. He also holds positions in Bloom Energy, SanDisk, and cloud provider CoreWeave.

IREN Limited, IREN

The miners in his portfolio are already making this shift. Core Scientific, one of his disclosed holdings, has announced plans to convert its Pecos site into a 1.5 gigawatt AI data center campus, repurposing 300 megawatts of existing mining capacity.

TeraWulf, another miner in the sector, reported that its AI and high-performance computing revenue of $21 million outpaced its Bitcoin mining revenue for the first time in Q1 2026. The transition from crypto mining to AI infrastructure is already happening across the industry.

The Case Against Chip Stocks

At the same time, Aschenbrenner opened $7.46 billion in put options against semiconductor companies and chip-related funds. These are bearish bets that profit if those stocks fall.

The largest position was a $2.04 billion put against the VanEck Semiconductor ETF. He also placed a $1.57 billion put against Nvidia, a $1.07 billion put against Oracle, and a $1.01 billion put against Broadcom.

The logic connects directly to his long positions. If the most valuable part of the AI buildout is power and physical infrastructure, then chip makers may not capture as much value as their current valuations suggest.

This creates a paired trade. He is long the companies that own the land and electricity. He is short the companies making the processors.

The 13F filing was submitted to the SEC on May 15 and accepted on May 18. Full holdings data is available at the Situational Awareness LP 13F tracker on 13f.info.

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