The Financial Times ran a story yesterday, citing “three people familiar with the matter,” in which it claims that a financial broker for Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth attempted to make a big investment in major defense companies in the weeks leading up to the US-Israeli attack on Iran. Hegseth’s broker at Morgan Stanley contacted BlackRock in February about making a multimillion-dollar investment in the asset manager’s Defense Industrials Active ETF, the people said, shortly before the US launched military action against Tehran. The deal didn’t go through only because the fund was not yet available for Morgan Stanley clients to buy. FT says that it is not known whether Hegseth’s broker subsequently found an alternative defence-focused fund to make the investment.
Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell denied the story. “This allegation is entirely false and fabricated,” he said. “Neither Secretary Hegseth nor any of his representatives approached BlackRock about any such investment.”
