President Donald Trump and his billionaire adviser Elon Musk have fanned the flames of a baseless rumor about America’s gold reserves at least a dozen times since mid-February.
The conspiracy theory, alleging without evidence that someone might have stolen the gold reserves from Fort Knox, Kentucky, has circulated for decades, but it seems to have first appeared on the Trump administration’s radar after far-right financial blog Zero Hedge tagged Musk in a post about the idea on X.
Since then, Musk and Trump have shared the idea and teased plans for a personal inspection of the fortress that holds the government’s gold bars.
Despite raising alarm and fueling conspiracy chatter online and offline, there is no evidence that any gold is missing, and there’s no indication that Musk or Trump has taken any concrete steps toward visiting Fort Knox. A White House spokesperson declined to comment on their plans, saying in an email: “No announcements at this time.”
The rumor immediately found an audience, including gold obsessives who have nurtured conspiracy theories about government gold reserves for more than 50 years. Many of them stubbornly reject the evidence that Fort Knox is secure, and they interpret its security measures as evidence that the government is hiding something.
Aaron Klein, the chair of economic studies at the Brookings Institution, said the statements by Musk and Trump fit a pattern of the two men trying to sow doubt in traditional institutions.
“The gold has come to have a symbolic value of the faith in the U.S. government’s fundamental position,” said Klein, who served in the Obama Treasury Department.
“Questioning the gold as having been ‘lost’ or ‘stolen’ is part of a series of actions that undermine confidence in America,” he added. “Why somebody who purports to be trying to restore America would want to undermine its confidence is confusing.”
Trump and Musk are tapping into a classic but obscure rumor with a long history: People have recycled the claim that Fort Knox is empty on a semiregular basis, sometimes paired with vague anti-government vibes.
“It comes up periodically, and it has for decades,” said Philip Diehl, a former director of the U.S. Mint, which oversees the gold storage. “Eventually, the pressure builds, and the president sends somebody in to take a look.”
In 1974, after a gadfly author named Peter Beter charged that unnamed powerful interests had looted Fort Knox, the rumor spread so widely that the U.S. Mint decided to invite lawmakers and journalists for a tour. And in 2011, then-Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, who favored abolishing the Federal Reserve and returning to a gold-based currency system, held a congressional hearing on whether the Fort Knox gold was secure. Treasury officials from both Republican and Democratic administrations have repeatedly said the gold is fine, and in 2017, Trump’s treasury secretary at the time, Steven Mnuchin, visited the Kentucky fortress and came away satisfied.
“The gold was there when I visited it. I hope nobody’s moved it. I’m sure they haven’t,” Mnuchin, who isn’t serving in Trump’s second administration, told CNBC in February.
Trump’s current treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, told podcast host Dan O’Donnell in February: “All the gold is present and accounted for.”
No visit has materialized in the nearly two months since then, and it’s not clear why.
Paul, the former congressman, said he’s not sure Musk and Trump will follow through. He has criticized Trump at times, including for bombing Yemen last month.
“They have other things to deal with. They have to plan the bombing in Yemen, and they have to deal with the oil in Syria. They have to stop a war on Ukraine, and so the gold they can forget about for a while. They’ll avoid it if they see an advantage to it. So that is why people don’t trust governments,” he said.
Paul said he believes past audits haven’t been thorough enough. He wants Trump and Musk to perform lab tests known as assays to determine the exact composition of the gold bars.
The gold reserve used to have a practical purpose: to allow foreign governments to swap their dollars for gold. But President Richard Nixon ended the practice in 1971. Now, its value is mainly symbolic of U.S. wealth, and other countries, such as China, have recently sought to build up their own reserves.
The gold theft rumors have come in several varieties, all without evidence, among them that European bankers took the gold or that the Rockefeller banking family did.
Certain conspiracy theories tend to pop up repeatedly over time, said Bret Schafer, a senior fellow who studies disinformation at the German Marshall Fund, a nonprofit organization that works to strengthen the U.S.-Europe alliance. Allegedly government-made bioweapons are one such recurring conspiracy theory, he said, and the Fort Knox gold rumor is another.
“These rumors work best when they’re built up over time. It’s like Hollywood sequels: You build off the original,” he said. And in both cases, he added, “you just get a lot of retreads.”
Fort Knox has appeared in movies that add to its allure. A scheme involving the facility is a major plot point in the 1964 James Bond film “Goldfinger,” underscoring the belief that Fort Knox could be a tempting target.
And unlike some internet-era hoaxes, the Fort Knox rumors originated in an age when conspiracy theories spread by less efficient means, not on X, whose owner, Musk, has 218 million listed followers.
“It precedes the social media digital age, but now we’re in an environment where things can pop from the corners of ‘conspiracy land’ to policy action in a matter of hours, because all of you have to do is land on Musk’s radar,” Schafer said.
Formally known as the U.S. Bullion Depository, the gold reserve site is next to the Army base Fort Knox. It was built in 1936, and President Franklin Roosevelt was the only visitor until the tour for media and members of Congress in 1974.
The tour 51 years ago yielded newspaper headlines such as one in The New York Times: “Visitors Get a Peek at Fort Knox Gold—It’s There.”
The Treasury Department’s nonpartisan inspector general audits the gold every year, said Eric Thorson, a former inspector general who’s now retired. He said that he sent teams of about three people every year and that he went personally once in 2011.
“There is absolutely zero doubt the gold is there,” he said.
“I’m a former Air Force pilot. I’ve been on bases with nuclear weapons, and this place has every bit the security that any nuclear base has,” he added. “The security is unbelievable. Nobody’s going to go in there and take it.”
Zero Hedge, a far-right financial blog and social media brand that appears to have first alerted Musk to the idea, frequently posts about gold as an investment. It tweeted in 2011 about Paul’s Fort Knox concerns and in 2017 about Mnuchin’s Fort Knox visit. Sometimes, accounts on X respond to Zero Hedge posts with commentary about Fort Knox.
Then, on Feb. 15, Zero Hedge posted a suggestion on X and tagged Musk directly.
“It would be great if @elonmusk could take a look inside Fort Knox just to make sure the 4,580 tons of US gold is there. Last time anyone looked was 50 years ago in 1974,” the account posted.
The second sentence is wrong, according to Thorson, but the post got the attention of Musk and others. It had 3.3 million views as of Friday.
“Surely it’s reviewed at least every year?” Musk responded to the post. Zero Hedge replied, repeating the falsehood that the gold isn’t reviewed every year.
Google Trends data shows that after the interaction, web searches for the term “Fort Knox” hit their highest level since Google began collecting data in 2004 and kept rising for several days.
On Feb. 16, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., Ron Paul’s son, chimed in. He repeated the inaccuracy that the gold isn’t reviewed annually and said, “Let’s do it.”
Zero Hedge has often faced restrictions on tech platforms for violating terms of service, including publishing allegedly derogatory material. In 2022, U.S. intelligence officials accused the site of amplifying Russian propaganda, a claim it denied. But under Musk’s ownership of X, Zero Hedge has thrived, growing its follower count from 1.5 million to 2.1 million.
Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones also discussed the Fort Knox rumor on his podcast. He said he supported Musk’s looking into Fort Knox while acknowledging that he heard the same rumor as a child more than 40 years ago. Jones’ sponsors and advertisers have for years included gold retailers.
Soon, Musk and Trump were fueling the uncertainty. On Feb. 17, Musk posted on X about the gold: “Maybe it’s there, maybe it’s not.” He spoke about it on Joe Rogan’s podcast and at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, often mixing the conspiracy theory with attempts at humor.
“We want to go see it and just make sure somebody didn’t spray-paint some lead or something, you know?” Musk said at CPAC on Feb. 20.
Musk reiterated his intention to inspect the goal as recently as March 30 at a town hall-style event in Wisconsin, after an unidentified audience member raised the subject. “You were going to go check our gold, and I’m worried about the Democrats and Joe Biden’s last administration with the money not being there,” the audience member said.
“Did you get blocked? Or are you still able to check that?” he asked.
“That’s up to the president, of course, but I think it would be awesome to livestream Fort Knox,” Musk responded. “Hopefully it looks really cool.”
Trump mentioned it to reporters several times, including in the Oval Office on Feb. 24. He has a longtime fascination with gold, with a golden escalator at one of his New York towers and a chocolate bar wrapped in gold foil for sale on his website for $86.
“We’re actually going to Fort Knox to see if the gold is there, because maybe somebody stole the gold, tons of gold,” Trump said, without citing any evidence.
The gold facility doesn’t offer tours, and its website is blunt: “No visitors are permitted in the facility.” But the Treasury Department answers to the president and would presumably let him in. The department didn’t respond to requests for comment.
The U.S. Mint says Fort Knox holds about 147.3 million ounces of gold currently, or about half the Treasury’s total gold reserves. That’s worth about $450 billion at the current market price — which is both a massive fortune and not enough to cover what the federal government spends in a single month.
Diehl, who was director of the U.S. Mint in the 1990s, said there’s a lot of overlap between Trump’s voting base and people who invest in metals such as gold or commemorative coins.
“Talking about gold speaks directly to his base,” said Diehl, who’s now the president of U.S. Money Reserve, a gold retailer.
Diehl said he’s certain the Fort Knox gold is secure, and yet he said he anticipates a surprise announcement of some kind by Trump, just given his approaching to governing: maybe selling the gold, maybe buying more, maybe something else entirely.
The price of gold soared to record highs in recent days amid concerns about Trump’s trade wars before they fell again along with other asset prices since last week’s tariff announcement. It’s unclear whether Musk or Trump has any personal gold holdings.
Thorson, the retired Treasury Department inspector general, said he believes the Fort Knox rumors are politically useful for Trump and Musk.
“What is probably happening here is taking any chance to make the American public feel that they’re being taken advantage of and that they’re a victim,” he said. Now, he said, Trump and Musk can position themselves as saviors in the mold of Trump’s 2016 statement “I alone can fix it.”
And the longer the visit doesn’t happen, the more useful the rumors become for anyone who benefits from them.
“If the intent is to undermine the financial system, you don’t actually want anyone to go there and look,” said Schafer, of the German Marshall Fund.