Washington: A broker for US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth attempted to make a major investment in leading defense companies in the weeks leading up to the US-Israeli attack on Iran, according to a Financial Times report published on Monday, citing three people familiar with the matter.
Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell swiftly denied the allegations on X, calling the story “entirely false and fabricated” and demanding a retraction.
The FT report said that Hegseth’s broker at Morgan Stanley contacted BlackRock in February to discuss a multimillion-dollar investment in the asset manager’s Defense Industrials Active ETF. This occurred shortly before the US launched military action against Tehran, heightening tensions in the region.
However, the investment discussed by Hegseth’s broker did not ultimately go ahead, as the fund — launched in May last year — was not yet available for Morgan Stanley clients to purchase. The FT report offered no details on the extent of the broker’s authority to execute trades for Hegseth, nor did it indicate if Hegseth was aware of or involved in the proposed investment
“Neither Secretary Hegseth nor any of his representatives approached BlackRock about any such investment,” Parnell said in his statement.
BlackRock declined to comment on the report, while Morgan Stanley did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment.
The report on the investment bid comes amid increased scrutiny of trades in financial and prediction markets before US President Donald Trump’s major policy decisions. Some decisions have been preceded by well-timed bets, leading experts to question if sensitive data were leaked ahead of time.
