In April 2026, Volkswagen and Rafael signed a letter of intent. The German company’s struggling Osnabrück plant would produce components for Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system, a deal meant to save 2,300 jobs. VW’s CEO, Oliver Blume, had already announced in March that the plant would close in 2027, and the deal was found as a way out of that closure. Reuters first reported on June 17 that Qatar, as a Volkswagen shareholder, was complicating the negotiations. Around July 10, the German newspaper Bild reported that the deal had collapsed, and Volkswagen itself confirmed that its Qatari shareholders opposed the partnership, saying it was exploring alternative ways to preserve the site. The reason given was that the Qatar Investment Authority, Volkswagen’s 3rd-largest shareholder, opposed the partnership. On July 16, a different report emerged, the magazine WirtschaftsWoche wrote that talks were still ongoing, that the narrative of a definitive veto wasn’t actually accurate. The story remains unresolved as this piece is being written, and that uncertainty itself says something.

This deal carries its own historical weight, one that can’t be passed over. Volkswagen was founded in 1937 by Hitler’s decree, and during the war roughly 80 percent of its workforce consisted of forced laborers, its complex held 4 concentration camps and 8 forced-labor camps, and its factories produced components for the Wehrmacht’s V-1 missiles. 81 years later, the same company is now discussing producing components for a missile defense system, this time for Israel. Scholars, including philosophy professor Torsten Menge of Northwestern University in Qatar, have said the arrangement could expose Germany to risks under its international law obligations. No one planned this historical irony, but the calendar sometimes builds this kind of symmetry on its own.

Qatar’s position inside Volkswagen isn’t new, it goes back to 2009. That year, after Porsche’s attempt to take full control of Volkswagen collapsed under debt, Qatar stepped in, acquiring 17 percent of voting rights and a seat on Porsche’s supervisory board. For 16 years, Qatar has been Volkswagen’s 3rd-largest shareholder, holding 2 supervisory board seats, staying out of daily management but retaining a voice in strategic decisions. This wasn’t a sudden intervention, it was a 16-year-old structural position being activated now. The name sitting in one of those board seats isn’t abstract, it carries a concrete biography. Mohammed Saif Al-Sowaidi, CEO of the Qatar Investment Authority, holds a double major in statistics and finance from the University of Missouri, is a CFA charterholder, began his career at ExxonMobil’s Qatar office, has worked at QIA since 2010, and became its CEO in November 2024. He sits, at the same time, on the boards of Qatar National Bank, Qatar Airways, Ooredoo, Harrods, and Volkswagen. 2 other former Qatari government officials sit alongside him on VW’s board. What we’re looking at, then, is not a hidden operative but a Western-educated figure fluent in the language of corporate governance, sitting on........

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