On March 19, 2026, during the US-Israel war against Iran, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth meets with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Cain at the Pentagon in Washington, DC.
Evan Vucci | Reuters
According to the Financial Times, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s brokers were seeking large investments in major defense companies in preparation for the Iran war. The Department of Defense denied the report.
The Financial Times reported on Tuesday that Hegseth’s broker at banking giant Morgan Stanley approached BlackRock in February about a multimillion-dollar investment in the firm’s iShares Defense Industrials Active ETF.
The ETF has about $3.1 billion in assets, according to BlackRock data, and its largest holdings include companies such as RTX (formerly Raytheon), Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman.
The Defense Industrials Active ETF fell 12.4% over the past month around the start of the Iran war, according to LSEG data.
The FT also said that the investments Mr. Hegseth’s brokers were considering were ultimately not executed because Morgan Stanley clients were not yet able to purchase the funds at the time. It was also unclear whether the broker had found other defense-related investments.
In a post about X, Pentagon Chief Press Secretary Sean Parnell dismissed the FT’s report as “completely false and fabricated” and called on the FT to retract the article.
Parnell said neither Hegseth nor his representatives have contacted BlackRock about such investments. “This is another baseless and dishonest slander aimed at misleading the public,” he added.
The US war against Iran has entered its fifth week, but the conflict shows no signs of slowing down.
US Marines have arrived in the region, and the Washington Post reported that the Pentagon is “preparing for weeks of ground operations in Iran.”
President Trump also said on Monday that the United States would “completely” destroy Iran’s power plants, oil wells and Kharg Island if the strategically important Strait of Hormuz is not reopened “immediately” and a peace deal is not reached “soon.”
