&imwidth=800&imheight=600&format=webp&quality=medium "Pentagon denies reports linking Pete Hegseth's broker to defence investment")
Pentagon denied reports that US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth's broker tried to make large investments in defence stocks in the build-up to the US-Israel war on Iran. The Pentagon has demanded that the newspaper “immediately” retract the report in the Financial Times. Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell has said that the allegations were “false and fabricated” and were designed to “mislead” the public.
“This allegation is entirely false and fabricated. Neither Secretary Hegseth nor any of his representatives approached BlackRock about any such investment,” Parnell said in a post on Social Media. Sean Parnell asserted that "neither Secretary Hegseth nor any of his representatives approached BlackRock about any such investment".
What were the allegations?
According to the Financial Times report published on Monday, March 30, 2026, a broker at Morgan Stanley reportedly contacted BlackRock just days ahead of the US-Israel attack on Iran on February 28 to discuss a multi-billion-dollar investment for a high-profile client. The proposed investment was in the iShares Defence Industrials Active ETF, whose holdings include Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. The purchase reportedly did not go through because the fund was unavailable for purchase at that time. Neither BlackRock nor Morgan Stanley has commented on this matter. Several reports suggest that even if the investment had been made, it would have incurred losses as shares of both the defence fund have actually declined 13 per cent, since the war with Iran.
Why is the development important?
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The development occurs as the US President Donald Trump is seeming;y shifting the blame of the US-Israeli war on Iran to the Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth. This also comes as there were huge amount of approximately $2bn in speculative trade instruments on March 23, minutes before Donald Trump’s Iran truce announcement. This fuelled speculation of insider trading against individuals close to the Trump administration.
