Leopold Aschenbrenner’s Wedding Officiant Wasn’t a Tech Leader. It Was a Former ‘New York Times’ Columnist
A meteoric rise, extreme leverage, and a sudden downturn turned an AI success story upside down. It came about as Leopold Aschenbrenner was tying the knot.
Leopold Aschenbrenner and Avital Balwit. Illustration: Inc; Photo: Adobe Stock, Courtesy subjects
The wedding of Leopold Aschenbrenner, an artificial intelligence researcher and investor, was full of high-profile Silicon Valley tech leaders. However, it was the news of his ceremony officiant that caught many by surprise.
Ross Douthat, a former columnist for The New York Times columnist and current correspondent for CBS News’ 60 Minutes, was asked to marry Aschenbrenner and his partner, Avital Balwit.
According to a report from the The Wall
According to a report from the The Wall Street Journal, Douthat first reached out to Aschenbrenner after reading his manifesto. In 2025, the two officially met. Aschenbrenner and his then-fiancée reportedly then asked Douthat to officiate the wedding.
“Hopefully I was in some small way,” Douthat told WSJ. “Even if the circumstances of the wedding ended up being very unusual.”
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However, amidst Aschenbrenner’s multi-day celebration to Balwit stood a small elephant in the room: the implosion of his $45 billion AI‑focused hedge fund, Situational Awareness.
According to a separate report from theJournal, Aschenbrenner agreed to sell his private stake in Anthropic worth $3.5 million in order to meet margin calls and save his venture. However, he then reportedly backtracked on the sale in the morning. Ken Griffin’s Citadel ultimately supplied the emergency liquidity Situational Awareness needed by agreeing to buy the vast majority of Situational’s public equity portfolio at a more than 10 percent discount from market value.
Source: www.inc.com
