Military Audit: Ferrari

Direct Defence Contracting & Procurement

Ferrari N.V.’s controlling shareholder, Exor N.V. (the Agnelli family holding company chaired by John Elkann), holds 24.65% of Ferrari’s equity and 36.48% of its voting rights, while Piero Ferrari holds 10.48% of equity and 15.51% of voting rights, as of the disclosures around the 16 April 2025 annual general meeting ¹². The current Ferrari N.V. board - Nigel Paxman (Chair), Piero Ferrari, Delphine Arnault, Francesca Bellettini, Eduardo H. Cue, Sergio Duca, John Galantic, Maria Patrizia Grieco, Adam Keswick, Michelangelo Volpi, Tommaso Ghidini, and executive directors John Elkann and Benedetto Vigna - carries no identified defence-industry, Israeli-settlement, or FIDF-affiliation ties for any member ². Ferrari’s chief executive since 2021, Benedetto Vigna, a 26-year veteran of STMicroelectronics prior to joining Ferrari, has no identified Israel or defence-industry ties ³. Ferrari does not appear among the manufacturers, importers, or agents returned in searches of SIBAT’s Defense and HLS Directory, the Israeli Ministry of Defense’s register of approved defence and homeland-security suppliers ⁴. No public evidence identified of any contract, tender, framework agreement, or memorandum of understanding between Ferrari and Israel’s Ministry of Defense, the IDF, the Israel Prison Service, or the Israel Border Police. No public evidence identified of press releases or trade-press reporting describing a joint venture or cooperative defence programme between Ferrari and any Israeli defence entity.

Dual-Use Products & Tactical Variants

No public evidence identified of a current mil-spec, ruggedised, or tactical product line marketed by Ferrari to any military or security force, Israeli or otherwise. The one historical exception is discontinued: Ferrari Engineering S.r.l., Ferrari’s engineering-consultancy subsidiary, designed and built the F333E “Lizard” light armoured vehicle as a private venture in the early 1980s, with a first prototype completed in 1980 and roughly fifteen pre-production units built by 1983 ⁵⁶⁷. The programme reportedly failed commercially because of Ferrari’s inexperience in the military market, and a small number of the vehicles are said to have gone to an unnamed Arab head of state, with no Israel connection identified in any source reviewed ⁵⁶. The F333E has remained dormant since the 1980s, and no Israel nexus has been identified for it at any point ⁵⁶⁷. No public evidence identified of any export licence, end-user certificate, or government export-control review connected to Ferrari sales to Israeli defence or security end-users.

Heavy Machinery, Construction & Infrastructure

No public evidence identified of Ferrari-branded equipment, vehicles, or machinery documented in settlement, separation-barrier, or military-installation construction or demolition activity in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. By contrast, CNH Industrial - a separate company under the same controlling shareholder, Exor N.V. (~29.38% stake), and maker of the CASE, New Holland and Steyr brands - is extensively documented by Who Profits and AFSC Investigate for heavy machinery used in: separation-wall construction near Artas village (2008); the Tel Aviv–Jerusalem A1 railway crossing the Green Line (2010); Leshem settlement construction using EX355 excavators (2012); Barkan Industrial Zone settlement expansion (2013); the Nabi Elias Bypass Road, which involved expropriation of roughly 25 acres and about 700 olive trees from three Palestinian villages (2017); and CASE machinery documented in home demolitions in A-Samu’, Hebron Governorate, on 8 April 2025 ⁸⁹. This 2025 dated finding post-dates both the July 2024 ICJ advisory opinion and the November 2024 ICC arrest warrants, indicating a continuing equipment-use pattern as of Who Profits’ most recent update ⁸. This is a CNH Industrial finding, not a Ferrari finding: Ferrari N.V. was spun off from Fiat Chrysler Automobiles in 2016 and operates as a separately listed, operationally independent company sharing no manufacturing, IT systems, or commercial operations with CNH Industrial, Stellantis, or Iveco Group; the only link is the shared controlling shareholder, Exor N.V., and shared Agnelli-family board representation ²¹⁰¹¹. No public evidence identified of Ferrari construction or engineering contracts for checkpoints, detention facilities, military bases, or settlement infrastructure.

Supply Chain Integration with Defence Primes

No public evidence identified of Ferrari supplying components, sub-systems, or materials to Elbit Systems, Israel Aerospace Industries, Rafael, or Elbit Land Systems; Iron Dome’s documented component suppliers are Rafael (prime), ELTA/IAI (radar), mPrest (battle-management software), and Rimon (sub-systems), none of which reference Ferrari. Israeli composite/carbon-fibre manufacturers with defence-sector expertise (e.g., Plasan, Comparts, Pas-Gon, IAI, Elbit Cyclone) were reviewed as a sector, but no evidence identified connects any of them to Ferrari as a supplier or customer. At the corporate-family level, Alessandro Nasi - Vice Chairman of Exor N.V. (Ferrari’s controlling shareholder) and a member of the Agnelli family - chaired the boards of Iveco Defence Vehicles and Astra, Iveco Group’s military-vehicle division, from 2019 until the division’s sale closed in March 2026 ¹²¹³. Nasi is not identified in any source as a Ferrari N.V. board member; this defence-adjacent role sits at the Exor/Iveco Group level, one holding-company tier removed from Ferrari itself ²¹². Iveco Defence Vehicles/Astra, a manufacturer of military vehicles ¹⁴, was sold by Iveco Group to Leonardo S.p.A. under a binding agreement announced 30 July 2025 and completed 18 March 2026 for €1.6 billion in cash ¹⁵¹⁶¹⁷, reported to be a precondition of Tata Motors’ takeover of Iveco Group’s civilian truck business ¹⁷. Commentary on the transaction, including Elkann’s role in the Iveco–Leonardo defence tie-up for army-vehicle production, frames it as effectively ending the Agnelli family’s decades-long presence in truck and military-vehicle manufacturing ¹⁸¹⁹. No public evidence identified of an Iveco Defence Vehicles–Israel supply relationship; searches for Iveco Defence Vehicles/Israel connections returned only general IDF-equipment overviews naming other manufacturers. No public evidence identified of joint development, co-production, or technology-transfer agreements between Ferrari itself and any Israeli defence firm.

Logistical Sustainment & Base Services

No public evidence identified of Ferrari service contracts - catering, transport, fuel, waste, facilities, or telecom - to IDF bases, training facilities, or detention centres in the West Bank, Golan Heights, East Jerusalem, the Negev, or elsewhere. No public evidence identified of Ferrari shipping, freight, or port-handling contracts connected to Israeli military logistics or arms shipments. Ferrari’s only verified Israeli commercial presence is a civilian retail dealership, Mediterranean Car Agency Ltd (“Samelet”), based in Herzliya inside the Green Line, an authorized Ferrari/Subaru/Stellantis-brands importer operating since 1946 ^20212223. No public evidence identified that this dealership, or its holding structure, provides services to Israeli security installations. Ferrari N.V.’s board chair as of the April 2025 AGM, Nigel Paxman, previously worked at Malca-Amit Group, an Israel-headquartered high-value-goods logistics and vaulting firm, in commercial jewel and precious-metals logistics; no defence-sector connection has been identified for that role ².

Munitions, Weapons Systems & Strategic Platforms

No public evidence identified of Ferrari as a manufacturer, licensee, or supplier of small arms, artillery, armoured vehicles, tactical drones, or naval vessels supplied to Israeli forces, beyond the discontinued 1980s F333E “Lizard” prototype noted above. No public evidence identified of munitions, explosive ordnance, propellant, or warhead-component supply by Ferrari to any Israeli end-user. No public evidence identified of any Ferrari role in Iron Dome, David’s Sling, Arrow, fighter aircraft, main battle tanks, warships, or ballistic-missile programmes. No public evidence identified of Ferrari supply of guidance electronics, fire-control systems, radar, propulsion units, or warhead casings to Israeli strategic-systems programmes.

Export Licensing, Regulatory & Legal History

No public evidence identified of any government decision to grant, deny, suspend, or revoke an export licence for Ferrari products to an Israeli military or security end-user, in any jurisdiction. No public evidence identified of arms-embargo or sanctions-compliance investigations or enforcement actions involving Ferrari and Israel-related defence trade; broader context confirms that the UK, Spain, and other states have restricted or reviewed arms-export licences to Israel since 2023, but none of the reviewed sources name Ferrari in this context. No public evidence identified of court proceedings, judicial reviews, or legal challenges regarding a Ferrari–Israel defence-supply relationship.

Civil Society Scrutiny & Documented Investigations

The UN Human Rights Office’s Database of Business Enterprises (maintained under Human Rights Council resolutions 31/36 and 53/25), most recently updated in September 2025 to list 158 companies from 11 countries, contains no reference to Ferrari, Ferrari N.V., Exor, or Piero Ferrari in searchable summaries of the database or its press release ²⁴²⁵. The Special Rapporteur’s report A/HRC/59/23, “From economy of occupation to economy of genocide” (Francesca Albanese, 2 July 2025), likewise returned no mention of Ferrari in the available summaries and indexes, although a full paragraph-level search of the primary text could not be completed ²⁶. Who Profits’ company database has no dedicated Ferrari (automotive) entry; a search hit for “Ferrari” returned only an unrelated furniture/appliance brand (“VS Ferrari”) distributed by Zoko Enterprises, verified as a false positive unconnected to Ferrari N.V. ²⁷. PAX’s June 2024 report, The Companies Arming Israel and Their Financiers, identifies six arms majors supplying Israel - Boeing, General Dynamics, Leonardo, Lockheed Martin, RTX, and Rolls-Royce - with no mention of Ferrari identified in the extracted text ²⁸²⁹. Al-Haq’s July 2024 booklet, Business and Human Rights in Palestine, returned no passages naming Ferrari in available search results, though full-text extraction of the source PDF could not be completed ³⁰. Ferrari’s profile on the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre lists only unrelated issue clusters - aluminium supply-chain allegations in Brazil and 2012 Bahrain Grand Prix protests - with no Israel/Palestine or defence-related entries ³¹. No NGO or academic report reviewed - Who Profits, AFSC Investigate, PAX, Al-Haq, the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, or the OHCHR database - contains a substantive entry connecting Ferrari (automotive) to Israeli military, security, or dual-use supply chains ^{892425272829303132}. No public evidence identified of a boycott, divestment, or exclusion campaign targeting Ferrari specifically on defence-sector grounds; general BDS Movement materials and boycott trackers reviewed do not list Ferrari as a target. AFSC Investigate’s Palantir Technologies profile lists Ferrari among several “high-profile” non-government/commercial Palantir clients (alongside Stellantis, AT&T, Heineken, Walgreens, and Wendy’s), explicitly distinguished on the same page from Palantir’s military, Israeli-defence, and ICE-related contracting work; Ferrari’s reported general-purpose use of Palantir Foundry for manufacturing and Formula 1 data analytics does not itself constitute a defence-sector finding ³². A single secondary feature by Calcalist (CTech) on the Agnelli/Elkann family’s Jewish heritage states that John Elkann is “rumored to donate to Israel”; this is an unsourced claim in one secondary article, uncorroborated by any primary philanthropic disclosure, and is treated here as low-confidence ³³. No public evidence identified of Ferrari corporate statements, policy changes, or end-use monitoring commitments issued in response to civil-society pressure regarding a defence supply chain.

End Notes