The mysterious vaults of U.S. Fort Knox

For over a week now, the catchphrase ‘Fort Knox’ has been stealing the spotlight online, to be more specific, in the U.S. Several conspiracy theories started floating around it and even U.S. President Donald Trump and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who is also the head of the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency, spoke about it in public. On February 20, 2025, President Trump, at the Republican Governors association meeting, said, “We’re going to inspect Fort Knox.”

The story so far: For over a week now, the catchphrase ‘Fort Knox’ has been stealing the spotlight online, to be more specific, in the U.S. Several conspiracy theories started floating around it and even U.S. President Donald Trump and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who is also the head of the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency, spoke about it in public. On February 20, 2025, President Trump, at the Republican Governors association meeting, said, “We’re going to inspect Fort Knox.”

So what is Fort Knox?

Fort Knox, a metonym for gold, is the U.S. Bullion Depository that sits on 1,09,000 acres of land, in Kentucky. It’s not a production facility but it stores bullion reserves of the United States in its fortified safety vaults.

How much gold does Fort Knox hold?

It was in 1937 that Fort Knox got its first gold shipment from Philadelphia Mint and New York Assay Office. On December 31, 1941, the Depository had its historic gold holdings at 649.6 million ounces. Except for the small portion for purity-testing purposes, no gold has changed hands to or from the Depository for several years. Currently, Fort Knox has in its vaults 147.3 million ounces of gold, which is nearly half of the Treasury’s stored gold, and valuables of other federal agencies.

Why so much fuss around Fort Knox now?

On February 16, 2025, conspiracy theorist Alex Jones tweeted saying the U.S. government claims it has nearly 5,000 tonnes of gold but Fort Knox has not been audited since 1974. The tweet opened the floodgates of conspiracies revolving it after Elon Musk replied him, “It would be cool to do a live video walkthrough of Fort Knox.” Further, he tweeted, “Who is confirming that gold wasn’t stolen from Fort Knox? Maybe it’s there, maybe it’s not.”