Indeed, according to the Financial Times which cites three sources close to the matter, a broker of Pete Hegseth, American Secretary of Defense, allegedly attempted to make a large investment in large companies in the arms sector, and this only a few weeks before the joint attacks of the United States and Israel against Iran.
Several large defense groups
According to information from the American media, Pete Hegseth’s broker at Morgan Stanley would have contacted BlackRock in order to make an investment of several million dollars in the ETF “Defense Industrials Active”, a fund of more than 3 billion dollars, managed by BlackRock. Several big names in the arms industry are part of this fund, including Lockheed Martin, RTX, Palantir and the German giant Rheinemetall.
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The investment would ultimately not have been made because the fund is not accessible to Morgan Stanley clients. But the intention itself raises questions and rekindles the debate on conflicts of interest, very often singled out within the Trump administration. “The fact that Hegseth’s broker was prepared to make such an investment at a time when the department headed by the defense secretary was preparing to launch a major military campaign is likely to spark controversy“, notes the Financial Times.
A bad investment?
If the investment did not take place, however, the British media nevertheless emphasizes that the Secretary of Defense would not have been able to benefit from it in any case. In fact, this fund fell by more than 14% the day after the American and Israeli strikes against Iran on February 28.
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From a more global point of view, since the start of the war, defense values have not been popular. The giant Lockheed Martin thus lost more than 11%, a similar decline for the RTX group. In Europe, the Safran group fell by more than 16% over one month and the giant Dassault Aviation, manufacturer of Rafale planes, lost more than 6%. One of the reasons given by analysts is the energy shock, which could force states to limit their military spending.
However, the Pentagon firmly denies these accusations, not hesitating to qualify the article as Financial Times of “Baseless and false smear campaign designed to mislead the public”according to White House spokesperson Sean Parnell on X.
