The Pentagon chief's 'broker' tried to invest in a defense fund before the attack on Iran, according to the 'Financial Times'

A broker linked to US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reportedly attempted a multi-billion dollar investment in the arms sector weeks before the joint US-Israel attack on Iran, according to the Financial Times, citing sources familiar with the matter.

Specifically, a Morgan Stanley stockbroker contacted asset manager BlackRock last February with the intention of investing in the iShares Defense Industrials Active ETF, a fund focused on companies that can benefit from increased defense spending in a context of geopolitical tension. The inquiry, made on behalf of a high-profile client, was detected internally by the firm, according to the same sources.

This fund, with a volume of approximately $3.2 billion, includes significant stakes in major Pentagon contractors such as RTX (formerly Raytheon Technologies), Lockheed Martin (the world's largest defense and security company), and Northrop Grumman (the third-largest military defense contractor in the US), as well as in the tech company Palantir, which specializes in data analysis.

After the publication of the information, the Pentagon's chief spokesperson, Sean Parnell, flatly denied the facts in a message on the X network, and assured that “this accusation is totally false and fabricated” and that neither Hegseth nor any representative of his contacted BlackRock. Both the asset manager and Morgan Stanley declined to comment.