Situational Awareness Raises Core Scientific Stake to 9.4% Ahead of CoreWeave Merger Vote

Situational Awareness, the fast-growing AI hedge fund founded by former OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner, has increased its stake in bitcoin miner Core Scientific (NASDAQ: CORZ) to 9.4%.

According to a Schedule 13D filed Tuesday with the SEC, the hedge fund continued to buy Core shares aggressively through mid-October, adding more than 10 million shares since September at prices ranging mostly between $17 and $19 per share. Its latest purchase on Oct. 14 involved 2.3 million shares at $19.07 each, lifting its total ownership from 5.8% previously to 9.4%.

The position build-up comes just weeks before Core Scientific’s shareholders are set to vote on the company’s proposed merger on Oct. 30 with AI cloud operator CoreWeave, a deal that would give CoreWeave a controlling stake in the mining company and further accelerate its pivot toward high-performance computing services.

Founded last year, Situational Awareness has drawn attention on Wall Street for its unconventional approach and its rapid ascent. As Fortune reported this month, Aschenbrenner—who was previously a member of OpenAI’s superalignment team and worked for FTX’s philanthropy arm—launched the fund with Silicon Valley backers, despite the founder’s young age.

Other bitcoin mining-related stocks that the hedge fund owns include $93 million in IREN and $63 million in Applied Digital, according to the Fortune article.