Axios accused of “market manipulation” with Iran reporting

Over the past several weeks, Axios has repeatedly reported that a diplomatic breakthrough with Iran was either “close,” “imminent” or nearing completion. On Wednesday, a little over an hour before Axios reporter Barak Ravid published a scoop claiming the White House believed it was close to reaching a one-page memorandum of understanding with Iran to end the war, nearly 10,000 crude oil contracts — worth approximately $920 million in notional value — were sold on the futures market by traders betting the price of oil was about to fall. According to data highlighted by trading surveillance accounts like The Kobeissi Letter, whoever placed those bets stood to make an estimated $125 million as oil prices collapsed more than 12%.

Then the reality of the war hit. Iran called the whole thing “the Americans’ wish list,” Donald Trump told the New York Post it was “too soon” to prepare for peace, Israel said it hadn’t even been informed of the proposal and oil bounced back 8% as traders realized the “imminent deal” might not exist at all. Even Fox News host Mark Levin, the war’s biggest media booster, wrote that he had concluded the Axios report was “largely fake.” A senior Iranian parliament member said Axios was being used by the White House for market manipulation. 

The money, though, had already changed hands.

This was not the first suspiciously-timed trade surrounding Axios’ reporting on Iran. Analysts tracking commodity activity and prediction markets have identified a series of similar trades surrounding major Iran-related announcements. According to trading data cited by market observers and later referenced by lawmakers demanding investigations, billions of dollars in oil bets appeared on several occasions shortly before sensitive geopolitical developments became public. After Ravid’s April 5 report suggesting progress in negotiations, another massive oil short reportedly appeared shortly before prices fell. Similar activity allegedly preceded subsequent Axios scoops on April 17 and May 1.

Some analysts, including CNBC host Jim Cramer, and social media users suggested Axios’ reporting may have been strategically released ahead of market trading, potentially influencing oil prices and broader financial sentiment.

Former head of global research at JPMorgan, Marko Kolanovic, reacted to oil price moves following Wednesday’s Axios report, saying, “Who knows what happens next in blatantly manipulated markets” and called the outlet’s credibility into question. Former Republican congressman Adam Kinzinger criticized the surrounding information environment in a tweet deleted after Axios communications director Jake Wilkins replied that the allegations are “obviously not true” and “it’s irresponsible of you to be promoting it.” Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgia Republican who left Congress after a public split with Trump, asked on X: “When is everyone going to start realizing that the manic on again off again war/peace rhetoric is really just insider trading?”

Want more sharp takes on politics? Sign up for our free newsletter, Standing Room Only, written by Amanda Marcotte, now also a weekly show on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.

Ben Rhodes, who served as former Deputy National Security Adviser to Joe Biden, wrote on X: “No matter how long it takes, it will be essential to someday figure out and hold accountable the people profiting off these constant and absurd leaks of imminent peace often to the same outlet.” Seyed Mohammad Marandi, a University of Tehran professor with long-standing ties to the country’s regime, wrote Wednesday in a post on X: “Axios is a tool for White House market manipulation. The Islamic Republic is fully prepared for a potential major attack before Trump’s trip to China.”

For his part, Ravid has categorically denied any coordination with traders, calling the allegations “complete and utter bulls**t.” A spokesperson for Axios said the outlet strongly supports Ravid, calling him “the best reporter on the world’s biggest story, delivering exclusive after exclusive.”

The 2024 White House Correspondents’ Association winner for overall excellence in White House coverage, Ravid is viewed as one of the premier national security reporters in Washington. When criticism gave way to conspiratorial and ugly attacks this week — unsupported claims that Ravid operates as an active intelligence asset embedded in U.S. journalism — journalists like CNN’s Dana Bash and Jake Tapper quickly came to his defense.

But dismissing all criticism as fringe paranoia avoids confronting the underlying reality that access journalism creates profound conflicts of interest, whether or not individual reporters act improperly. Modern national security journalism increasingly operates as an elite signaling system in which anonymous officials shape narratives through carefully-timed leaks that pressure foreign governments, manipulate public perception — and sometimes even markets. So Axios has continued functioning precisely as access journalism outlets typically do: publishing what powerful officials tell them in exchange for continued insider access. After all, journalists are not responsible for what insiders do with information after publication.

That dynamic becomes especially dangerous during war.

Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-NY., has sent multiple letters to regulators demanding investigations into the trading activity surrounding Iran-related announcements. Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Sheldon Whitehouse similarly urged the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to investigate what they described as recurring suspicious trades tied to sensitive government information.

Torres captured the broader institutional despair bluntly when he admitted he lacked confidence in regulators but felt there was “no choice but to agitate for accountability.”

That erosion of public trust did not emerge overnight.

We have been here before. The Iraq War permanently damaged the credibility of America’s national security establishment because too many journalists became stenographers for officials selling catastrophic falsehoods. Anonymous sourcing from intelligence-linked figures produced front-page stories about weapons of mass destruction that did not exist. The think tanks and analysts who shaped that discourse were wrong about nearly everything and were rewarded with more airtime. The media rewarded access over accuracy, speed over skepticism, proximity to power over independence from it. And the Iraqi and American public paid the price — in blood, in treasure and in a trust in institutions that has never fully recovered.

Now many of the same ideological pipelines are shaping the discourse around Iran.

Whatever is driving these trades — whether it’s White House officials acting on their own intelligence, private networks with advance knowledge of publication schedules or some combination we cannot yet map — the effect is the same: We are witnessing a system of legalized looting dressed up in the language of geopolitics and breaking news.