Pete Hegseth's broker at investment bank Morgan Stanley is said to have contacted fund manager BlackRock in February to invest multi-million-dollar amounts in the Defense Industrials Active ETF (IDEF), which owns shares in Palantir, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, among others.
The deal was never completed, but it is unclear whether the broker had better success elsewhere.
Neither BlackRock nor Morgan Stanley would comment on the data.
The Pentagon denies that Hegseth or any of his representatives contacted BlackRock about such an investment.
