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President Donald Trump said his administration is going to audit the U.S. gold reserves kept at Fort Knox in Kentucky.
“We’re going to go to Fort Knox, the fabled Fort Knox, to make sure the gold is there,” Trump said Wednesday on Air Force One.
A drive to audit Fort Knox has gained steam from comments by Elon Musk on X recently. Over the past few decades, conspiracy theories have emerged from time to time about whether the government is being truthful about the amount of gold stored there because of the fort’s high security.
The Treasury Department gives the exact amounts of the U.S. gold reserves on its website and says there are 147,341,858.382 troy ounces in Fort Knox.
“I think if this administration presses for an audit, that’ll be a good thing for everybody,” said Alamos Gold CEO John McCluskey on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Thursday.
Treasury officials have confirmed that the gold is there at Fort Knox. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Wednesday told a Wisconsin broadcaster that the Treasury does an audit every year.
“All the gold is present and accounted for,” Bessent said
In response to a question from CNBC’s David Faber on “Squawk on the Street” on whether there is gold at Fort Knox, former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said: “The gold was there when I visited it. I hope nobody’s moved it. I’m sure they haven’t.”
Bessent’s comments from earlier this month, to “monetize the asset side of the U.S. balance sheet for the American people” also added to recent investor speculation that the U.S. government should audit its gold reserves and perhaps revalue them. The Treasury Department’s current gold holdings are priced at $42 per ounce, a level that is set by law and hasn’t changed since 1973.
Spot gold on Thursday rose, hitting another record high of $2,954.69 an ounce earlier in the session. That’s bullion’s tenth record high of the year.