Tesla CEO and Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) head Elon Musk on Sunday voiced his support for setting up a livestream of Fort Knox and its gold reserves.
In response to a question about Musk checking on the gold at Fort Knox, the billionaire said he thought it “would be awesome to livestream Fort Knox.”
Fort Knox’s U.S. Bullion Depository is one of several places across the country where the U.S. government keeps its gold reserves. It is located in Kentucky.
“I mean, that would be really fun. And after all, it is actually the gold of the American people, so the American people, it seems to me, have a right to see their gold,” he said.
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“Hopefully, it looks really cool. You know, open the doors like, ‘Is it there? Is that really gold? Let’s check.’ Maybe it’ll be really interesting,” he continued.
Musk said he was “all for it” and that President Donald Trump “says he’s interested in doing it, so hopefully it happens.”
Conspiracy theories about the status of Fort Knox’s gold have been rampant on social media, and Musk and Trump have also speculated about whether the bullion remains present at the highly secure depository, saying it needs to be confirmed.
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“Who is confirming that gold wasn’t stolen from Fort Knox?” the DOGE head wrote on social media in mid-February, speculating that “maybe it’s there, maybe it’s not.”
Musk has weighed in on a Fort Knox livestream several times in recent weeks.
In mid-February, for instance, he said on X that it “would be so cool to do a live video walkthrough of Fort Knox.” He has also said the “ratings on a live broadcast of Fort Knox would be” two fire emojis.
Both current and former Treasury secretaries have said the gold was present at Fort Knox.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a February interview with journalist Dan O’Donnell that “we do an audit every year, so the audit that ended the year Sept. 30, 2024, all the gold is present and accounted for.”
In August 2017, Steven Mnuchin, who served as Treasury secretary in Trump’s first administration, took a trip to Fort Knox, according to the U.S. Mint’s website. Then-Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin and members of Congress accompanied him.
“The gold was there when I visited it. I hope nobody’s moved it. I’m sure they haven’t,” Mnuchin told CNBC last month. “I was the first Treasury secretary to go there in, I think, over 50 years. There’s very serious security protocols in place, obviously, to protect the gold that I can’t talk about. But we went, we saw it, and if President Trump wants it to be audited, that’s obviously something that can be easily done.”
At the time of his Fort Knox visit, he posted on then-Twitter, “Thanks to @usmint staff for hosting at #FortKnox #USBD. First @USTreasury Secretary to visit since John Snyder in 1948. Glad gold is safe!”
Fort Knox is home to 147.3 million fine troy ounces of gold bullion in deep storage, according to data published by the Treasury Department in late February.
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That represented a “book value” of $6.2 billion. However, based on the price of the precious metal as of Tuesday, Fort Knox’s gold is worth more than $459.2 billion.
The U.S. Mint said on a webpage dedicated to the U.S. Bullion Depository at Fort Knox that the “only gold removed has been very small quantities used to test the purity of gold during regularly scheduled audits,” and other than that, no gold “has been transferred to or from the Depository for many years.”
Overall, the U.S. Treasury has nearly 261.5 million troy ounces of gold bullion and gold coins “across various U.S. Treasury-maintained locations” in late February, the department reported.
Michael Dorgan, Bailee Hill and Eric Revell contributed to this report.
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