Last Updated: August 2026

Vanguard

Vanguard Group is the world's second-largest asset manager with $10.4 trillion in assets, operating a mutual ownership structure that funnels investments from 50+ million individual investors into companies including weapons manufacturers, Israeli military contractors, and companies enabling complicit in human rights violations and occupation. A July 2025 UN Human Rights Council report officially named Vanguard as a central enabler of the "economy of genocide,". The reports documents how the firm channels critical funding to state and corporate actors behind Israeli apartheid and military operations in Gaza. Despite urgent calls from UN experts to divest, Vanguard has refused to respond and continues expanding its holdings in companies profiting from war.

War Portfolio

Vanguard maintains over $90 billion in war contractor investments across 103 funds, holding dominant stakes in every major U.S. weapons manufacturer. As of writing this, the firm owns 9.2% of Lockheed Martin ($10 billion), making it the second-largest shareholder in the company that supplies F-35 fighter used to drop an estimated tons of bombs on Gaza. Vanguard is one of the largest shareholder in multiple weapons manufacturers including RTX Corporation, Boeing, CAT, Northrop Grumman, and the Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems. Vanguard is also one of the largest investor in the nuclear weapons industry globally, holding billions in nuclear weapons manufacturers.

Vanguard invested $546 million in Israeli government treasury bonds issued in March 2024 and February 2025 to fund military spending that ballooned from 4.2% to 8.3% of Israel's GDP. The firm holds hundred of millions in Elbit Systems Israel's largest weapons manufacturer that provides drones, targeting systems, and weapons integral to Israeli operations in Gaza.

Vanguard is the largest institutional investor in Palantir Technologies, which supplies AI-powered automated targeting systems including "Lavender," "Gospel," and "Where's Daddy?".

Sources:

Aljazeera UN report lists companies complicit in Israel’s ‘genocide’: Who are they?
Business and Human Rights Resource Centre Vanguard Group did not respond to urgent call by UN Experts to cease the transfer of arms to Israel
Investopedia Who Owns Vanguard Group?
The Intercept Report: Bit by Bit, the Noose Is Tightening Around the Nuclear Weapons Industry
United Nations From economy of occupation to economy of genocide – (A/HRC/59/23) Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967
Weapon Free Funds Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund

List of investments in companies complicit in war and human and labour rights violations

Total Investment: $1903.79B

Companies are sorted by investment amount (highest to lowest)