The New Cold War Is an Alibi for Tech Elites’ Impunity

Before the spectacular implosion of his $45 billion AI hedge fund late last month, twenty-four-year-old Leopold Aschenbrenner had laid out a road map for a new Cold War with China. In June 2024, shortly after being fired from OpenAI, Aschenbrenner published a titled “Situational Awareness,” analogizing his work in Silicon Valley to the race to build the atomic bomb. The nuclear secrets that had permanently changed the world’s balance of power and won World War II for the United States, he…