President Donald Trump vowed to personally go to Fort Knox to inspect whether or not some of the nation’s gold reserves had been stolen.
And he said the billions in bullion better be there when he opens the doors.
‘All my life, I’ve heard about Fort Knox. That’s where the gold is kept, right?,’ he told the Republican Governors Association on Thursday night.
‘We’re going to open up the doors. I’m going to see we have gold there. We want to find out, did anybody steal the gold in Fort Knox?’
He also vowed: ‘I’m going to actually go. We’re going to open the doors We’re going to inspect Fort Knox. We want to make sure that we actually have, you know, 400, tons of gold, or whatever to hell it is. It’s a lot of gold. I don’t want to open it and the cupboards are bare.’
Elon Musk, who Trump tasked with weeding out wasteful government spending and inefficiency, urged officials to audit how much gold is at the Fort Knox military base in Kentucky.
The SpaceX founder also brought up a decades-old conspiracy theory that the U.S. gold reserves are no longer there.
President Donald Trump vowed to go to Fort Knox and personally see if the gold was there
Gold bars seen in Fort Knox in September 1974
Musk was asked on X about viewing the facility and responded: ‘Surely it’s reviewed at least every year?’
But Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky said it’s not and personally invited Musk to come view it.
Additionally, Musk posted a meme Monday from the animated comedy ‘South Park’ that reads ‘Annnnd It’s Gone’ with the caption, ‘Looking for the gold at Fort Knox …’
Trump indicated Thursday night he wants to come on the trip, which has not been scheduled.
He told reporters on Wednesday that he wanted Musk to look into the issue. But he had no answer when a reporter asked him where the gold may have gone.
‘If the gold isn’t there, we’re going to be very upset,’ the president replied.
Fort Knox holds roughly 147 million troy ounces of bulk gold, which represents over half the gold held by the U.S. federal government or 56.35 percent of the total.
The U.S. Mint Police are responsible for protecting the gold reserve.
Gold reserves in the U.S., just like all gold reserves, act as a financial safety net against economic instability.
It stores actual, tangible value and helps hedge against inflation with the intention of maintaining public confidence in the nation’s currency despite the gold standard no longer being the way the economy operates.
The last inspection of the gold reserves appears to have been in August 2017 when Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell brought a small group, including then-Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, to the vault.
A few very grainy black and white images of Mnuchin in the vault were released after the visit in front of what the public is told are golden bars.
Mnuchin was the first head of the Treasury to visit the depository since 1948.
Elon Musk questioned why the gold vaults are not reviewed every year
The United States Bullion Depository stands on Fort Knox on Thursday, February 27, 2014 in Fort Knox, Ky. Built in 1936, the depository holds gold bullion reserves belonging to the U.S. Treasury Department
The first inspection of the vault was in 1943 by President Franklin Roosevelt in the aftermath of the Great Depression and in the throes of World War II.
The aforementioned 1974 inspection came in response to a circulating conspiracy theory at the time that claimed elites had secretly removed the gold and the vaults were actually empty.
Members of Congress and the media attended the tour led by the U.S. Mint Director at the time to prove to the public the gold was still there.
